He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

by Walter J. Ciszek

Men died in those camps, especially those who gave up hope. But I trusted in God, never felt abandoned or without hope, and survived along with many others.

I never looked on my survival as anything special or extraordinary, but I did give thanks to God for sustaining and preserving me through those years.

What could I tell them except to pray and to trust in God? Even in that I felt foolish.

When in despair even faith can feel foolish. Never lose it regardless.

“Why has God allowed this evil to happen?” Why persecutions? If God must allow natural disasters, or even wars because of human failings, why can’t he at least allow his flock to be shepherded and comforted during such calamities? Surely he could defend and protect his flock instead of having it singled out for special attack such as this.

We doubt because we don't see the whole picture as God does. Faith is hard, that's what makes it special

Yet, from our vantage point in history, we know it was really quite the opposite. Israel’s troubles were in truth a manifestation of Yahweh’s special providence, his special love for his chosen people. Like a fond and loving father, he was trying to wean them away from trust in kings or princes or in armies or the powers of this world. He was trying to teach them, again and again, that their faith must only be in him alone. He was leading them, through every trial and in every age, to the realization that God alone is faithful in all tribulations, that he alone is constant in his love and must be clung to, even when it seems all else has been turned upside down. Yahweh is still the Lord behind the events and happenings of this world; he can be found there, and he must be sought in them, so that his will may be done.

God works towards the greater good, not just ones good.

Yet, from our vantage point in history, we know it was really quite the opposite. Israel’s troubles were in truth a manifestation of Yahweh’s special providence, his special love for his chosen people. Like a fond and loving father, he was trying to wean them away from trust in kings or princes or in armies or the powers of this world. He was trying to teach them, again and again, that their faith must only be in him alone. He was leading them, through every trial and in every age, to the realization that God alone is faithful in all tribulations, that he alone is constant in his love and must be clung to, even when it seems all else has been turned upside down. Yahweh is still the Lord behind the events and happenings of this world; he can be found there, and he must be sought in them, so that his will may be done.

God works to the greater good, not just short term good or one good.

That same lesson each of us must learn, difficult or not. How easy it is, in times of ease, for us to become dependent on our routines, on the established order of our day-to-day existence, to carry us along.

Somehow, then, God must contrive to break through those routines of ours and remind us once again, like Israel, that we are ultimately dependent only upon him, that he has made us and destined us for life with him through all eternity, that the things of this world and this world itself are not our lasting city, that his we are and that we must look to him and turn to him in everything.

It's easy to forget God when times are easy. God sometimes breaks our routines to remind us that it is through Him that we have anything to begin with. We need Him.

It is not princes or rulers, structures or organizations, that sustain the Church. It is God who sustains her.

It is not vindictiveness on his part; he does not send us tragedies to punish us for having so long forgotten him. The failing is on our part. He is always present and ever faithful; it is we who fail to see him or to look for him in times of ease and comfort, to remember he is there, shepherding and guarding and providing us the very things we come to count on and expect to sustain us every day.

“Do not be anxious, therefore, saying what shall we eat or what shall we wear, or where shall we sleep, for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice.”

Exactly. God knows what you need and shall provide. It is our duty to seek Him and deepend our faith and trust in Him.

striving always to know his will and to do it each day of our lives.

It was to me what God’s call to the patriarch Abraham must have been, that call by which he was told to leave his kinfolk in Ur of the Chaldees and journey to a land the Lord would show him.

I love that

Any young man or woman who has felt called to a vocation and then hesitated, wondering if the call is genuine, knows the agonies of such second thoughts and how powerful the counterarguments can be.

Boyyyy have I been there. Writing, Europe, so many times

The mind comes up with rationalizations to justify for itself a decision taken without sufficient reason, or to justify doing what the will has already determined for itself that it is going to do. That is why such rationalizations are so often suspect, why motives must always be examined so carefully. But these were arguments against doing what I knew I wanted to do, these were questions based on fact and on reality, and they were valid arguments.

I knew then what I must do. I experienced then what I had heard before from spiritual directors or read in spiritual books but never fully understood: That God’s will can be discerned by the fruits of the spirit it brings. That peace of soul and joy of heart are two such signs, provided they follow upon total commitment and openness to God alone and are not founded on the self’s desires.

There are movements of the soul, deeper than words can describe and yet more powerful than any reason, that can give a man to know beyond question or arguing or doubt that digitus Dei est hic (the finger of God is here), and the name of that reality is grace. God does inspire men by his grace, does lift the heart, does enlighten the mind and move the will.

For what it’s worth, I can testify to that. Only in the decision to go on to Russia did I find the joy and the interior peace that are marks of God’s true intervention in the soul. And so to Russia I would go.

For a moment I thought with sorrow and regret about the possibility of never returning to Europe, to the United States, to Shenandoah. Yet the strong realization rushed over me that I was not cut off from God, that he was with me, indeed that I was dependent only on him in a new and very real way.

God is with you no matter what. I left everything familiar in pursuit of my calling, yet as I learned later I was never alone. Even when it felt that way.

Because our hopes had been so high, our enthusiasm so great, our disappointment at being unable to initiate any type of apostolate at all was just that much the greater.

expectations oft lead to nothing good

It is the same temptation faced by everyone who has followed a call and found that the realities of life were nothing like the expectations he had in the first flush of his vision and his enthusiasm.

It is the temptation to say: “This life is not what I thought it would be. This is not what I bargained for. It is not at all what I wanted, either. If I had known it would be like this, I would never have made this choice, I would never have made this promise. You must forgive me, God, but I want to go back.

Relatableee. Ultimately though it is God who placed you there and his will is above all.

It was amazing how impressive the Gospel message could be in such circumstances; our spirits would seem to drink in the words, savor them, and feel the divine power in them.

The word is all mighty.

And then one day, together, it dawned on us. God granted us the grace to see the solution to our dilemma, the answer to our temptation. It was the grace quite simply to look at our situation from his viewpoint rather than from ours. It was the grace not to judge our efforts by human standards, or by what we ourselves wanted or expected to happen, but rather according to God’s design. It was the grace to understand that our dilemma, our temptation, was of our own making and existed only in our minds; it did not and could not coincide with the real world ordained by God and governed ultimately by his will.

PERSPECTIVE PERSPECTIVE PERSPECTIVE. God's will unfolds in reality. You can accept or live in despair. Controlling your perspective is key to understand His will.

“Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God Our Lord, and by this means to save his soul. The other things on the face of the earth are created for man to help him in attaining the end for which he is created. Hence, man is to make use of them insofar as they help him in the attainment of his end, and he must rid himself of them insofar as they prove a hindrance to him. Therefore, we must make ourselves indifferent to all created things.”

AHHH YES. So true.

do the will of God. Not the will of God as we might wish it, or as we might have envisioned it, or as we thought in our poor human wisdom it ought to be.

His will for us was the twenty-four hours of each day: the people, the places, the circumstances he set before us in that time. Those were the things God knew were important to him and to us at that moment, and those were the things upon which he wanted us to act, not out of any abstract principle or out of any subjective desire to “do the will of God.” No, these things, the twenty-four hours of this day, were his will; we had to learn to recognize his will in the reality of the situation and to act accordingly.

For to what other purpose had we been created? For what other reason had he so arranged it that we should be here, now, this hour, among these people?

The simple soul who each day makes a morning offering of “all the prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day”—and who then acts upon it by accepting unquestioningly and responding lovingly to all the situations of the day as truly sent by God—has perceived with an almost childlike faith the profound truth about the will of God.

It's so simple, but we complicate it so much. Hand over your day to the Lord, and accept His will wholeheartedly without fighting it. It's fascinating that something so easy can be so difficult.

The plain and simple truth is that his will is what he actually wills to send us each day, in the way of circumstances, places, people, and problems. The trick is to learn to see that—not just in theory, or not just occasionally in a flash of insight granted by God’s grace, but every day. Each of us has no need to wonder about what God’s will must be for us; his will for us is clearly revealed in every situation of every day, if only we could learn to view all things as he sees them and sends them to us.

The temptation is to overlook these things as God’s will. The temptation is to look beyond these things, precisely because they are so constant, so petty, so humdrum and routine, and to seek to discover instead some other and nobler “will of God” in the abstract that better fits our notion of what his will should be.

The challenge lies in learning to accept this truth and act upon it, every moment of every day.

The trouble is that like all great truths, it seems too simple.

His way of consoling me, however, as had happened so often in the past, was to increase my self-knowledge and my understanding of both his providence and the mystery of salvation.

But because the conditions were inhuman was no reason that I, or any other man, had therefore to cease to be human. We were not, and did not have to be, the product of our environment.

Perspective

In how many other ways, too, had I allowed this admixture of self, this luxury of feeling sorry for myself, to cloud my vision and prevent me from seeing the current situation with the eyes of God?

That woe is me crap never helps

No man, no matter what his situation, is ever without value, is ever useless in God’s eyes.

God's love is eternal

No situation is ever without its worth and purpose in God’s providence. It is a very human temptation to feel frustrated by circumstances, to feel overwhelmed and helpless in the face of the established order

Everything happens for a reason whether you like it or not

Under the worst imaginable circumstances, a man remains a man with free will, and God stands ready to assist him with his grace. Indeed, more than that, God expects him to act in these circumstances, this situation, as he would have him act. For these situations, too, these people and places and things, are God’s will for him now.

Free will is there for us to choose Him. Always act. God does not want passive he wants active

But God does not expect a man single-handedly to change the world or overthrow all evil or cure all ills. He does expect him, though, to act as he would have him act in these circumstances ordained by his will and his providence. Nor will God’s grace be lacking to help him act.

Most of us won't over turn anything. We act in humility and through God's grace.

The sense of hopelessness we all experience in such circumstances really arises from our tendency to inject too much of self into the picture.

Good tip is to try and remove yourself from situations. Try to see things from all angles.

He cares. But he also expects each man to accept, as from his hands, the daily situations he sends him and to act as he would have him act and gives him the grace to act.

What each man can change, first of all, is himself. And each will have—indeed, must have—some influence on the people God brings into his life each day. He is expected, as a Christian, to influence them for good.

Always be Christ like. Spread love and joy, but most of all sincerity

As Christ had set the example for me, so could I be to them an example of Christian charity and concern.

Be like Christ.

I could at least pray for them and offer up for them to the Father of us all the suffering and anguish that their rejection of me as a priest caused me. Christ

Leave all suffering and worrh at the foot of the cross, and trust the Lord to do what needs to be done.

had prayed for his persecutors, “Father, forgive them.” If I could do nothing else at this moment in the prison at Perm, I could do that.

God does not ask the impossible of any man. He was not asking more of me, really, than he asks of every man, every Christian, each day of his life.

God gives you what you can handle.

But above all I prayed.

Jesuit houses at home a “daily order.” As soon as we were awakened in the morning, I would say the Morning Offering; then, after the morning trip to the toilet and wash-up, I would put in a solid hour of meditation. The five-thirty A.M. rising hour and seven o’clock breakfast in Lubianka were almost identical to the daily order in most of the Jesuit houses I had lived in, so the days began to fall into a pattern for me again. After breakfast, I would say Mass by heart—that is, I would say all the prayers, for of course I had no way actually to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice. I said the Angelus morning, noon, and night as the Kremlin clock tolled the hours over Red Square a few blocks from Lubianka Street. At noon, I would make an examination of conscience as suggested by Saint Ignatius in his Spiritual Exercises. I would make another examen before going to bed at night, and also prepare the points for my next morning’s meditation. Each afternoon, I said three rosaries—one in Polish, one in Latin, and one in Russian—as a substitute for my breviary.

Wow talk about allowing the Lord to save you. Through ritual he was able to save his mind. He was never alone bc he had God.

And I learned soon enough that prayer does not take away bodily pain or mental anguish. Nevertheless, it does provide a certain moral strength to bear the burden patiently. Certainly, it was prayer that helped me through every crisis.

Prayer isn't making a wish to a genie. It's seeking the Lord and His grace and company. It's a reminder of His ever present nature and our need to submit to his will.