He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

by Walter J. Ciszek

The betterment of mankind, the abstract notion of humanity, or a glorified concept of man are very tenuous ideals that quickly lose their power to inspire or to satisfy in the face of daily experience and the constant grind of day-to-day living. One can be dedicated for a while to the goal of serving suffering humanity, one can be inspired by the notion of brotherhood as a goal, but human nature being what it is—and human failings all too prevalent—it is difficult to support and maintain these moments of inspiration without some deeper and more significant motivation. In Marxist ideology, in atheistic Communism, man and the material world are all there is; for the rest, there is only a vague vision of some future perfect society, some more elevated and better stage of mankind that will exist in a golden age to come, for which even the most doctrinaire apologists of Communism have long since given up trying to set a date. Suddenly, today’s Communists find themselves in the position of those first- and second-century Christians who began to realize that the Parousia, the second coming of Christ, was not just around the corner. Ironically, the future golden age of Communism is now treated by the ordinary citizen, and especially the young, with the same contempt that Communist spokesmen used to reserve for their “pie in the sky” descriptions of religion. Man, after all, is only man—especially if he is the fellow next door with all his petty failings, or the stupid guy at the n...