"The torture he endured did not “finish” Fr. George;
it made him courageous enough to defy the authorities, and even accept a second term of imprisonment as the price of preaching the gospel.
Fr. Roman says that, in fact, his time in prison brought him an unexpected blessing,
because it was there that he first discovered the depths of prayer.
“I was forced to find myself in prison,” he writes in his book, Exploring the Inner Universe (HDM Press, 1996).
“Only then was I able to discover how beautiful the interior life of man is …
We will never reach the same spiritual level of life as in Communist imprisonment.”
I asked Fr. Roman whether he was able to forgive his torturers.
“Those who suffer much, forgive,” he said.
“Those who do not forgive become victims.
I embraced my torturers, once I saw that they were controlled by the devil.
The devil is real, not a bedtime story.”
I imagine that such extreme suffering must make a person feel very different from those around him/her.
ReplyDeleteWow. Thank you for sharing!
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