A rap on the door of my train compartment: "Your lunch, Miss Treece." Another meal in solitary as the train clickety-clacked cross country from Oregon to New York.

I was self-imprisoned in this tiny economy bedroom in March 2005 to answer what I believed was God's call (through a publisher's in 2004) to write a book on Good Pope John XXIII, who died in 1963.

A door had opened for interviews with retired Archbishop Loris F. Capovilla, John's private secretary his last nine years of the pope's life and his literary executor. Here was a chance for priceless information.

But first I had to get to northern Italy in flu season. With almost no ability to make germ-fighting white cells (due to an overdose of anti-rejection medicine after my 2003 kidney transplant), flu could kill me. To my own prayers for protection were added those of saintly people, many around Los Angeles. With that support, I set out, joking --- strictly to myself --- that maybe I'd die in the arms of an archbishop.

(I would find this imaginary obit even funnier when I saw the archbishop. Had I collapsed on this smiling toothpick of a man, he would have died.)

Scary in my mask, I stepped harmlessly off the New York-to-Milan flight. My prayer supporters obtained from God a promise that I be treated as "a petted child" in Italy. My friend Maria Angela Collacci, a Father Kolbe Missionary of the Immaculata --- whom I met when she served in West Covina --- had invited me to stay during Holy Week, time I needed for recouping from jet lag.

Brushing off the chore of driving hours to get me and hours back, Angela and two companions took me to their motherhouse, giving me a newly-built room --- minimal germs there --- and a wondrous, all-needs-met Holy Week undistracted by a single Easter bunny. Not only was my offer to pay them refused --- they paid me for the latest Italian reprint of "A Man for Others" on Kolbe.

Although during that wintry Easter 2005 their chapel bulged with handkerchief-wielding women, I remained well. On Easter Monday, rather than let my immune-suppressed feet touch public transport, a Missionary drove me hours on the worst traffic day of the Italian year to lodgings near Archbishop Capovilla. From there, I was able to spend precious moments interviewing this humble associate of the pope.

Cosseted like that, I returned home unscathed and set to work on my huge treasure trove of materials --- everything from John's first seminary letter to his family to his nephew's bedside account of Pope John's holy death.

All this --- several thousand pages' worth --- was written in small-print Italian. Perhaps due to the intense use of my eyes, cataracts first caused by another transplant med worsened dramatically. Surgery was impossible due to my miniscule white count. Fearing that God might be asking my sight, feeling somewhere deep inside that would not be the case, and hoping this feeling was not just denial, I went on.

The more I knew John XXIII, the more I loved him --- and not just for the good he was doing my soul. I saw him as the role model for our time and nation where even followers of Christ savagely rend those we disagree with politically or theologically --- unlike Pope John who, when he had to condemn a book of misleading theology, made certain the person who wrote it was not attacked personally and once said to a cardinal who thought it a duty to God to scheme against him, "Eminence, our heads are a little far apart but our hearts are close."

Armed with a magnifier for reading and using 20-point type on my computer, the book took shape. Then in 2006, on a retreat in mountains near San Diego, I was felled by a bug that for six months seemed surer and surer to kill me. Others prayed and I pleaded, "Lord, don't let me die until I finish this book."

I survived and, after an initial failure, a brilliant university hematologist tried again and succeeded in restoring my bone marrow's ability to make white cells, in turn permitting sight-restoring surgery. I rejoiced even as another problem sparked unending novenas for the prayers of several dead souls close to John. The archbishop had transferred his literary executor rights to a foundation which remained deaf to my pleas for permission to use the materials. No permission meant no publication.

The saints have taught me to hope against hope, and to believe that, when hopes are not answered as one wishes, in the bigger reality a failed project can still benefit souls. John having modeled this so well, I accepted it.

But I also remembered the nun who --- asked why, if she had faith, she took so much antacid --- said, "I am a woman of faith; my stomach just doesn't know that" as I underwent gastro and heart tests, due to symptoms brought on by the permission and editorial stresses. Among them: I had gotten carried away by John and now 30,000 words had to go in order to keep the book at the saleable size for which I'd contracted.

My friend and John devotee, Augustinian Father Bob Gavotto --- a seminarian in Rome during John's pontificate --- had to go to Rome in 2008. I begged him to pursue the permission further. It was Father Bob who had helped open the doors to obtaining my interviews with Archbishop Capovilla, and whose elegant Italian made the interviewing, translating and transcribing process much easier.

In Italy, incredibly, Father Bob made phone contact with the foundation. Promises. But weeks later --- nothing. On his final day in Rome, he said Mass at John's tomb and returned to his room. Waiting was the permission letter from the foundation.

"Meet John XXIII: Joyful Pope and Father to All" was published before Christmas 2008. A gift of God to us all, a gift that I was privileged to write but that others' help --- above all, prayer --- made possible.

And, a gift followed by an unexpected personal grace: My health is suddenly that of 15 years ago, allowing me to be equal to the task of traveling --- in coach --- to speak about loveable, joyful, generous John.

Patricia Treece, the author of "Meet John XXIII: Joyful Pope and Father to All" (Servant Books, 2008), for many years wrote the "Saints Alive" column for The Tidings. Having authored numerous books on saints --- notably Therese of Lisieux, Maximilian Kolbe and Padre Pio --- she currently resides in Portland, Oregon.