The Prison Angel

The Prison Angel
Author: Mary Jordan
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2006-05-30
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1101098716

The winners of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting tell the astonishing story of Mary Clarke. At the age of fifty, Clarke left her comfortable life in suburban Los Angeles to follow a spiritual calling to care for the prisoners in one of Mexico's most notorious jails. She actually moved into a cell to live among drug king pins and petty thieves. She has led many of them through profound spiritual transformations in which they turned away from their lives of crime, and has deeply touched the lives of all who have witnessed the depth of her compassion. Donning a nun's habit, she became Mother Antonia, renowned as "the prison angel," and has now organized a new community of sisters-the Servants of the Eleventh Hour—widows and divorced women seeking new meaning in their lives. "We had never heard a story like hers," Jordan and Sullivan write, "a story of such powerful goodness." Born in Beverly Hills, Clarke was raised around the glamour of Hollywood and looked like a star herself, a beautiful blonde reminiscent of Grace Kelly. The choreographer Busby Berkeley spotted her at a restaurant and offered her a job, but Mary's dream was to be a happy wife and mother. She raised seven children, but her two unfulfilling marriages ended in divorce. Then in the late 1960s, in midlife, she began devoting herself to charity work, realizing she had an extraordinary talent for drumming up donations for the sick and poor. On one charity mission across the Mexican border to the drug-trafficking capitol of Tijuana, she visited La Mesa prison and experienced an intense feeling that she had found her true life's work. As she recalls, "I felt like I had come home." Receiving the blessings of the Catholic Church for her mission, on March 19, 1977, at the age of fifty, she moved into a cell in La Mesa, sleeping on a bunk with female prisoners above and below her. Nearly twenty-eight years later she is still living in that cell, and the remarkable power of her spiritual counseling to the prisoners has become legendary. The story of both one woman's profound journey of discovery and growth and of the deep spiritual awakenings she has called forth in so many lost souls, The Prison Angel is an astonishing testament to the powers of personal transformation.

The Prison Angel

The Prison Angel
Author: Mary Jordan
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2006-05-30
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780143037170

The winners of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting tell the astonishing story of Mary Clarke. At the age of fifty, Clarke left her comfortable life in suburban Los Angeles to follow a spiritual calling to care for the prisoners in one of Mexico's most notorious jails. She actually moved into a cell to live among drug king pins and petty thieves. She has led many of them through profound spiritual transformations in which they turned away from their lives of crime, and has deeply touched the lives of all who have witnessed the depth of her compassion. Donning a nun's habit, she became Mother Antonia, renowned as "the prison angel," and has now organized a new community of sisters-the Servants of the Eleventh Hour—widows and divorced women seeking new meaning in their lives. "We had never heard a story like hers," Jordan and Sullivan write, "a story of such powerful goodness." Born in Beverly Hills, Clarke was raised around the glamour of Hollywood and looked like a star herself, a beautiful blonde reminiscent of Grace Kelly. The choreographer Busby Berkeley spotted her at a restaurant and offered her a job, but Mary's dream was to be a happy wife and mother. She raised seven children, but her two unfulfilling marriages ended in divorce. Then in the late 1960s, in midlife, she began devoting herself to charity work, realizing she had an extraordinary talent for drumming up donations for the sick and poor. On one charity mission across the Mexican border to the drug-trafficking capitol of Tijuana, she visited La Mesa prison and experienced an intense feeling that she had found her true life's work. As she recalls, "I felt like I had come home." Receiving the blessings of the Catholic Church for her mission, on March 19, 1977, at the age of fifty, she moved into a cell in La Mesa, sleeping on a bunk with female prisoners above and below her. Nearly twenty-eight years later she is still living in that cell, and the remarkable power of her spiritual counseling to the prisoners has become legendary. The story of both one woman's profound journey of discovery and growth and of the deep spiritual awakenings she has called forth in so many lost souls, The Prison Angel is an astonishing testament to the powers of personal transformation.

The Angel of Bang Kwang Prison

The Angel of Bang Kwang Prison
Author: Susan Aldous
Publisher: Maverick House
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2007
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1908518006

Susan Aldous had been on a path to self-destruction when she decided to give her life to others instead of wasting it away in Melbournes dark underbelly. Working as a Playboy bunny girl, an admirer sponsored her to travel abroad for charity. She left a world of drugs and petty crime behind and moved to Singapore, then to Thailand to work on a nine day project helping the socially disadvantaged. 18 years later she is still there. A single mother with no salary and few possessions, she devotes her life to helping others, visiting prisoners who have nobody else to turn to.

Elizabeth Fry

Elizabeth Fry
Author: Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
Publisher:
Total Pages: 232
Release: 1916
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

The Prisoner of Heaven

The Prisoner of Heaven
Author: Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 749
Release: 2012-07-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0062206303

“A deep and mysterious novel full of people that feel real. . . .An enthralling read and a must-have for your library. Zafón focuses on the emotion of the reader and doesn’t let go.” — Seattle Post-Intelligencer Internationally acclaimed, New York Times bestselling author Carlos Ruiz Zafón creates a rich, labyrinthine tale of love, literature, passion, and revenge, set in a dark, gothic Barcelona, in which the heroes of The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game must contend with a nemesis that threatens to destroy them. Barcelona, 1957. It is Christmas, and Daniel Sempere and his wife, Bea, have much to celebrate. They have a beautiful new baby son named Julián, and their close friend Fermín Romero de Torres is about to be wed. But their joy is eclipsed when a mysterious stranger visits the Sempere bookshop and threatens to divulge a terrible secret that has been buried for two decades in the city's dark past. His appearance plunges Fermín and Daniel into a dangerous adventure that will take them back to the 1940s and the early days of Franco's dictatorship. The terrifying events of that time launch them on a search for the truth that will put into peril everything they love, and will ultimately transform their lives.

Rogue Angel

Rogue Angel
Author: Jodi Werhanowicz
Publisher:
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2005
Genre: Christian biography
ISBN: 9780977429400

This is the dramatic story of a life redeemed from crime and one woman's journey to purpose and wholeness.

A Book of Angels

A Book of Angels
Author: Marigold Hunt
Publisher: Sophia Institute Press
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2006-09
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1933184000

Angel stories from the Bible — for kids

Modern believers may be tempted to look upon angels as one of the more fanciful elements of Scripture, but this illuminating and entertaining collection of angel stories from the Bible shows that there are just too many angels for them to be metaphorical, allegorical, or unimportant.

So that children will come to know and learn to revere angels, Marigold Hunt explains what angels are (and are not!) and gathers here in one volume most of the stories of angels in the Bible, including exciting tales of:

  • The fallen angels, beginning with the devil himself, tempting Adam and Eve
  • The angel who barred the gates of Eden so Adam and Eve could never enter again
  • The angels who announced that Sara, Abraham’s aged wife, would have a baby
  • The angels who tried to save Lot from destruction with the city of Sodom
  • The angel who stayed Abraham’s hand as he was about to sacrifice his son Isaac
  • The angels in Jacob’s dream who climbed the stairway to Heaven
  • The angels who saved Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago from the fiery furnace
  • The angel Raphael, who shielded Tobias from death, and protected his wife Sara
  • The angels at the Ascension who chided the apostles for staring at the sky
  • The angel Gabriel, who foretold the birth of Jesus and John the Baptist
  • The choirs of angels who sang above Bethlehem when Jesus was born
  • The angel who carried food to Daniel when he was imprisoned in the lion’s den
  • The angel who freed Peter from prison, and, of course:
  • The countless angels who fill the marvelous pages of the Book of Revelation
  • Children will be charmed by these exciting tales.

    Read an excerpt.

     

     

     

    Waiting for an Angel

    Waiting for an Angel
    Author: Helon Habila
    Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
    Total Pages: 244
    Release: 2004
    Genre: Fiction
    ISBN: 9780393325119

    Lomba is a young journalist living under military rule in Lagos, Nigeria, the most dangerous city in the world. His mind is full of soul music and girls and the lyric novel he is writing. But his neighbors on Poverty Street are planning a demonstration that is bound to incite riot and arrests. Lomba can no longer bury his head in the sand.

    Speaking with the Angel

    Speaking with the Angel
    Author: Nick Hornby
    Publisher: Penguin UK
    Total Pages: 209
    Release: 2011-07-07
    Genre: Fiction
    ISBN: 0241959462

    Speaking with the Angel is a collection of short stories, edited by Nick Hornby Hear the Prime Minister explain to the House why he did a runner from Greenford Park service station and hitched a lift with a fifteen-year-old girl, as imagined by Robert Harris. Listen to someone who has a small hostile creature in his room, as told by Roddy Doyle. Twelve voices, twelve completely new stories, narrated by twelve different characters. And all written by twelve of the most exciting and popular writers around: Robert Harris, Melissa Bank, Giles Smith, Patrick Marber, Colin Frith, Zadie Smith, Dave Eggers, Helen Fielding, Roddy Doyle, Irvine Welsh, John O'Farrell and Nick Hornby himself. This sparkling collection has been put together by bestselling novelist Nick Hornby, who also contributes an Introduction about TreeHouse, an organisation that offers a unique and pioneering approach to the education of children with autism. £1 will go to TreeHouse with every copy sold of Speaking with the Angel.

    Angel Train

    Angel Train
    Author: Gilbert Morris
    Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
    Total Pages: 182
    Release: 2009-06-01
    Genre: Fiction
    ISBN: 0805464662

    “You’re asking Bible-believing righteous folk to put their lives in the hands of jail birds.” Popular romance and historical fiction writer Gilbert Morris serves up his most unique story yet in Angel Train. The mid-1800s tale introduces Charity Morgan, a beautiful yet businesslike young heroine whose devout religious community is losing its Pennsylvania homestead to the economic recession. To survive and stay together, the members plan to form a wagon train to Oregon where free land is aplenty. The only catch is that no wagon master is better equipped to lead them safely out West than inmate Casey Tremayne and his band of fellow felons. After Charity’s prison warden uncle offers the men parole upon completion of this sacred and dangerous journey, only divine intervention can bring all parties to common ground.