November 1, 2018 Book Discussion: I Live Again by Princess Ileana

This year marks the 50^th anniversary of the consecration of the Orthodox Monastery of the Transfiguration in Ellwood City, PA. The monastery was founded by Mother Alexandra (the former Princess Ileana of Romania) whose dream it was to provide a place for American Orthodox women from all ethnic backgrounds.

 I Live Again, a memoir, was re-printed this year with contemporary annotations. It offers an engrossing first hand account of the personal trauma experienced in World War II and the path of recovery. 

From the bookseller:

Princess Ileana wrote this memoir shortly after relocating to the US in the 1950s. It tells the story of a life full of suffering, tragedy, (divorce), and exile, but all is suffused with the author's deep faith, hope, love, and even joy. This reprint includes additional material collected by the nuns of her monastery that sets the memoir in the context of Mother Alexandra's later life.

Excerpts:

After she was exiled from Romania by the Communists…

”Yes, to live again, because after I left home,…I was as one dead. Not circumstances alone were hard to bear, but the need to live at all. I did not doubt for a moment the physical necessity of my presence for my six children; my love for them was as strong and potent as ever. But inside, the “me” that was me independent of the mother, the wife, the friend—the essential “me” upon which all the rest is built—suffered a mortal shock when my life was severed from my people.”

            “My parents’ early training of me has been of great value, as has been the gift of cheerfulness and natural love for people that has blessed my nature. But the real strength to carry on my life, to face disappointment, and strangers, and loneliness, to be determine to “ live again,” comes from something much deeper within me—from the inner force which absolute faith gives.”

 In October, 2008 we discussed the Royal Monastic, Princess Ileana's biography. Visit: http://hocalibrary.blogspot.com/2008/10/book-discussion-group-royal-monastic.html.

We will be meeting November 1, 2018 in the Family Life Center, Lancaster) at 7:00 P.M. The book is  available in the church bookstore and library.