'My soul is in these pages' From the age of 14 until his death at the age of 82, Pope John XXIII kept what he called his Journal of a Soul, jotting down in school exercise books and on odd pieces of paper the record of his growth in holiness. Elected Pope at the age of 78 he astonished the world by his breadth of mind, his simplicity and the love which shone out of him for the whole world. These pages have been put together by the patient willing labour of secretaries, with the loving anxiety of sons. It reveals, in the vaery nature of its prayers and its spontaneous outpourings, the intimate feelings and true character of a man and priest whose transparent goodness enable the reader to catch a glimpse of an inner life rich in the beauty of holiness. This book will console the hearts of men and women and keep them better company than many accounts of Pope John XXIII's life which may dwindle into rhetoric and become the stuff of legend. This substantial volume is a rare, if not a unique, document, as it records like no other through an uninterrupted series of spiritual notes, the whole life of a priest who became Pope, and reveals what he kept a jealously guarded secret behind his smiling and innocent gaiety: his prayer, his soul.