He Leadeth Me Quotes

“Across that threshold I had been afraid to cross, things suddenly seemed so very simple. There was but a single vision, God, who was all in all; there was but one will that directed all things, God's will. I had only to see it, to discern it in every circumstance in which I found myself, and let myself be ruled by it. God is in all things, sustains all things, directs all things. To discern this in every situation and circumstance, to see His will in all things, was to accept each circumstance and situation and let oneself be borne along in perfect confidence and trust. Nothing could separate me from Him, because He was in all things. No danger could threaten me, no fear could shake me, except the fear of losing sight of Him. The future, hidden as it was, was hidden in His will and therefore acceptable to me no matter what it might bring. The past, with all its failures, was not forgotten; it remained to remind me of the weakness of human nature and the folly of putting any faith in self. But it no longer depressed me. I looked no longer to self to guide me, relied on it no longer in any way, so it could not again fail me. By renouncing, finally and completely, all control of my life and future destiny, I was relieved as a consequence of all responsibility. I was freed thereby from anxiety and worry, from every tension, and could float serenely upon the tide of God's sustaining providence in perfect peace of soul.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me

“We go along, taking for granted that tomorrow will be very much like today, comfortable in the world we have created for ourselves, secure in the established order we have learned to live with, however imperfect it may be, and give little thought to God at all. 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. Then it is, perhaps, that he must allow our whole world to be turned upside down in order to remind us it is not our permanent abode or final destiny, to bring us to our senses and restore our sense of values, to turn our thoughts once more to him—even if at first our thoughts are questioning and full of reproaches. Then it is that he must remind us again, with terrible clarity, that he meant exactly what he said in those seemingly simple words of the Sermon on the Mount: “Do not be anxious about what you shall eat, or what you shall wear, or where you shall sleep, but seek first the kingdom of God and his justice.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“Mysteriously, God in his providence must make use of our tragedies to remind our fallen human nature of his presence and his love, of the constancy of his concern and care for us. 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.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“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. We begin to take things for granted, to rely on ourselves and on our own resources, to “settle in” in this world and look to it for our support. We all too easily come to equate being comfortable with a sense of well-being, to seek our comfort solely in the sense of being comfortable. Friends and possessions surround us, one day is followed by the next, good health and happiness for the most part are ours. We don’t have to desire much of the things of this world—to be enamored of riches, for example, or greedy or avaricious—in order to have gained this sense of comfort and of well-being, to trust in them as our support—and to take God for granted. It is the status quo that we rely on, that carries us from day to day, and somehow we begin to lose sight of the fact that under all these things and behind all these things, it is God who supports and sustains us. We go along, taking for granted that tomorrow will be very much like today, comfortable in the world we have created for ourselves, secure in the established order we have learned to live with, however imperfect it may be, and give little thought to God at all.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“We tend to concentrate on ourselves, we tend to think of what we can or cannot do, and we forget about God and his will and his providence.”
― Walter J. Ciszek Sj, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“And the greatest grace God can give such a man is to send him a trial he cannot bear with his own powers—and then sustain him with his grace so he may endure to the end and be saved.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“Between God and the individual soul, however, there are no insignificant moments; this is the mystery of divine providence.”
― Walter J. Ciszek Sj, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“I had been with them a little more than a year; I had been ordained a little more than two years. How inexperienced and immature I felt at this sudden crisis of such proportions. Supported by the routines of a parish priest, I had ministered to these people in their daily problems, helped them, consoled them, said Mass and brought Communion to the sick, anointed the dying. I had made many friends among them, and they trusted me, young as I was—the young American in their midst. But the war changed everything.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“Through the long years of isolation and suffering, God had led me to an understanding of life and his love that only those who have experienced it can fathom. He had stripped away from me many of the external consolations, physical and religious, that men rely on and had left me with a core of seemingly simple truths to guide me. And yet what a profound difference they had made in my life, what strength they gave me, what courage to go on!”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“As soon as Germany invaded Russia in June 1941, I was picked up by the NKVD and put into prison. I was taken by train to the dread Lubianka Prison in Moscow for interrogation as a “Vatican spy.” I remained there all through the war years, undergoing periodic and often intense questioning by the NKVD. Then, after five years, I was sentenced to fifteen years at hard labor in the prison camps of Siberia. Along with thousands of others, I was put to work in labor brigades doing outdoor construction in the extreme arctic cold, or in coal and copper mines, ill clothed, ill fed, and poorly housed in the timber barracks surrounded by barbed wire and a “death zone.” 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.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“I had continuously to learn to accept God’s will—not as I wished it to be, not as it might have been, but as it actually was at the moment.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“Nada podía separarme de Dios, porque Él estaba en todo. Ningún peligro podía amenazarme, ningún temor podía estremecerme, excepto el de dejar de verle a Él. Por escondido que estuviera el futuro, estaba escondido en su voluntad y, por lo tanto, yo sería capaz de aceptarlo, trajera consigo lo que trajera. El pasado, con todos sus fallos, no estaba olvidado: seguía ahí para recordarme la fragilidad de la naturaleza humana y la necedad de poner la confianza en uno mismo. Pero ya no me pesaba. Ya no confiaba en mi propia guía, ya no dependía de mí mismo, así que no podía volver a fallar. Al renunciar completa y definitivamente a todo control sobre mi vida y mi destino futuro, me liberaba de cualquier responsabilidad. Me liberaba de la angustia y la preocupación, de toda tensión, y podía flotar serenamente, con perfecta paz de espíritu, en la marea de la providencia divina que me sostenía.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me

“That’s what humility means—learning to accept disappointments and even defeat as God-sent, learning to persevere and carry on with peace of heart and confidence in God, secure in the knowledge that something worthwhile is being accomplished precisely because God’s will is at work in our life and we are doing our best to accept and follow it.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“This tendency to set acceptable conditions upon God, to seek unconsciously to make his will for us coincide with our desires, is a very human trait.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“Then it is, perhaps, that he must allow our whole world to be turned upside down in order to remind us it is not our permanent abode or final destiny, to bring us to our senses and restore our sense of values, to turn our thoughts once more to him—even if at first our thoughts are questioning and full of reproaches.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“Only man can freely choose not to serve his Creator.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“In the Incarnation God came to know for himself what a thing is the life of man, what a work of his hands is this creature composed of body and soul. From the dark of the womb to the black of the tomb, through childhood to manhood and the last, slow long-drawn-out agony of dying, he has known for himself what it means to live in a handful of clay, to feel the cool touch of mother’s hand on fevered flesh, to taste the salt of sweat and tears, to hear music and birdsong and the vilest of insults, to stumble and fall, be bruised and mangled and torn. He cried out at last, as have all of us at one time or another, to be spared any more burdens or suffering. The Incarnation, in short, meant that God became man, like us in all things, says Saint Paul, except sin.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“Conversation with God comes easily whenever God is felt—there are no other words to describe the experience—to be present to the soul. But the human mind is so easily distracted. What is more, it is so easily deceived. It can say the proper words and utter pious formulas as easily as a dog can “speak” for its supper. It has learned what to say, and it will say the proper formula upon the proper cue. Yet such rote formulas are, in and of themselves, no more prayers than are the poor dog’s barkings truly speech. God may hear and understand, as we may hear and feed the dog; some minimal communication has been achieved, and no effort goes unrewarded with the Lord. But we have not, for all that, truly learned how to pray.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“Una vez traspasado el umbral que tanto temía cruzar, todo me parecía sencillísimo. No veía más que una cosa: a Dios, que era todo en todo; no había más que una voluntad que lo gobernaba todo: la voluntad de Dios. Solo tenía que verla, descubrirla en cualquier circunstancia en la que me hallara, y dejarme guiar por ella. Dios está en todo, lo sostiene todo, lo gobierna todo. Descubrirlo así en cada situación y en cada circunstancia, ver su voluntad en todo, significaba aceptar cada circunstancia y cada situación, y dejarse llevar con una seguridad y una confianza perfectas.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me

“Solo puedo describir la experiencia de conversión como una sensación de «dejarse llevar», de renunciar a todo esfuerzo o incluso a mi deseo de tomar las riendas de mi propia vida. Aunque suene demasiado simple, esa decisión ha condicionado a partir de entonces cada uno de los momentos de mi vida. Solo puedo llamarlo una conversión.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me

“If God had preserved him this far, a prisoner would tell you, if he had not rejected him with all his transgressions but had kept him alive until now, then surely he would not abandon him. That was the source of their confidence and trust in him.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“The kingdom of God will not be brought to fulfillment on earth by one great, sword-swinging battle against the powers of darkness, but only by each of us laboring and suffering day after day as Christ labored and suffered, until all things at last have been transformed.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“For just as surely as man begins to trust in his own abilities, so surely has he taken the first step on the road to ultimate failure. And the greatest grace God can give such a man is to send him a trial he cannot bear with his own powers—and then sustain him with his grace so he may endure to the end and be saved.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“conditions were degrading only if we let ourselves become degraded.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“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),”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“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.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“It is much easier to see the redemptive role of pain and suffering in God’s plan if you are not actually undergoing pain and suffering. It was only by struggling with such feelings, however, that growth occurred. Each victory over discouragement gave an increase in spiritual courage; every success, however fleeting, in finding the hand of God behind all things, made it easier to recapture the sense of his purpose in a new day of seemingly senseless”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“I had, in fact, long ago decided what I expected to hear from the Spirit, and when I did not hear precisely that, I had felt betrayed. Whatever else the Spirit might have been telling me at that hour, I could not hear. I was so intent on hearing only one message, the message I wanted to hear, that I was not really listening at all.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“I am speaking only of a conversation with God, the spontaneous outpouring of a soul that has come to realize—however fleetingly—that it is standing at the knee of a loving and providing Father.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith

“I was lonely enough and homesick in the years that followed. My father died while I was studying in Rome, and I could not be at his funeral. When I was at last ordained in Rome, none of my family could afford to make the trip to be with me. Yet through those years I never once wavered in my conviction that God had called me for the Russian missions; I never doubted that I would one day serve him there.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith