He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

by Walter J. Ciszek

ometimes I think that those who have never been deprived of an opportunity to say or hear Mass do not really appreciate what a treasure the Mass is. I know, in any event, what it came to mean to me and the other priests I met in the Soviet Union; I know the sacrifices we made and the risks we ran in order just to have a chance to say or hear Mass. When we were constantly hungry in the camps, when the food we got each day was just barely enough to keep us going, I have seen priests pass up breakfast and work at hard labor on an empty stomach until noon in order to keep the Eucharistic fast, because the noon break at the work site was the time we could best get together for a hidden Mass. I did that often myself. And sometimes, when the guards were observing us too closely and we couldn’t risk saying Mass at the work site, the crusts of bread I had put in my pocket at breakfast remained there uneaten until I could get back to camp and say Mass at night. Or again, during the long arctic summer, when the work days were the longest and our hours of sleep were at a minimum, I have seen priests and prisoners deprive their bodies of needed sleep in order to get up before the rising bell for a secret Mass in a quiet barracks, while everyone else clung to those precious extra moments of sleep. In some ways, we led a catacomb existence with our Masses. We would be severely punished if we were discovered saying Mass, and there were always informers. But the Mass to us was always worth...

Good to reflect on for our Eucharistic Revival. I do not appreciate the Mass enough, and the freedom to celebrate it.

What could a handful of priests in the camp do, they would say, or what can individual priests dispersed all over the Soviet Union do to combat atheism and the propaganda directed against the Church and religion? What real chance had the Church to survive under such a system, where the people were constantly bombarded with reports that discredited religion as superstition, where the practice of religion was discouraged in so many ways and made difficult by so many subtle pressures, where a man could lose his job or the possibility of an education for his children because he was known to be a believer, or the children themselves were made fun of in school because their parents were believers, or were taught to despise the religious practices an older generation still clung to and talked about at home? How could a few priests, their numbers dwindling because seminaries were closed, ever hope to have much effect against the full power of the government and its propaganda? How could they do much good at all, when even those who still believed or wanted to believe in God were afraid to come to them or be seen with them for fear of reprisals at work, or the condemnation and hostility of friends or neighbors, or pressures brought indirectly to bear upon them and their families in so many ways? Humanly speaking, the task seemed hopeless and the future at best uncertain. It was all too easy to become discouraged, so the comfort of one another’s company and the idea of retreats or d...

Wow, many of these sentiments can be felt today.

I wasn’t out to convert anybody, but those themes were my contributions to the discussions that arose spontaneously about the meaning of life and of humanity, about brotherhood and a sense of dedication to work for a better life, about evil in the world and morality, about freedom and peace. If I didn’t make believers out of anyone in the course of these rambling conversations, I at least presented them with an alternative to the party line and the doctrines they had heard and come to believe and sometimes question. I offered another answer at least to the questions that troubled them, and made them aware that for those of us who believed, at any rate, there was a meaning to man and his existence here on earth that went beyond the purely human and material. It wasn’t a matter of telling them that I had all the answers and they had all the questions and problems; I was trying to show that the doubts and the longings expressed, the inner stirrings of their hearts and souls, came from a spirit in man that was natural but more than material. I echoed Saint Augustine’s saying that man’s heart was made for God alone and it is restless until it comes to rest in him. Nor was it a question of my giving long sermons or explanations of the Church’s doctrine or the Creed or salvation history—as the above synopsis might make it seem—for the evenings were filled with questions and counterquestions, with arguments and rebuttals, with explanations that led to further thoughts and question...

A beautiful example of walking with one person in honest discourse and respect.