A deeply personal story of one man’s spiritual odyssey and the unflagging faith which enabled him to survive the ordeal that wrenched his body and spirit to near collapse. Captured by a Russian army during World War II and convicted of being a "Vatican spy," Jesuit Father Walter J. Ciszek spent 23 agonizing years in Soviet prisons and the labor camps of Siberia. Only through an utter reliance on God's will did he manage to endure the extreme hardship. He tells of the courage he found in prayer--a courage that eased the loneliness, the pain, the frustration, the anguish, the fears, the despair. For, as Ciszek relates, the solace of spiritual contemplation gave him an inner serenity upon which he was able to draw amidst the "arrogance of evil" that surrounded him. Ciszek learns to accept the inhuman work in the infamous Siberian salt mines as a labor pleasing to God. And through that experice, he was able to turn the adverse forces of circumstance into a source of positive value and a means of drawing closer to the compassionate and never-forsaking Divine Spirit. He Leadeth Me is a book to inspire all Christians to greater faith and trust in God--even in their darkest hour. As the author asks, "What can ultimately trouble the soul that accepts every moment of every day as a gift from the hands of God and strives always to do his will?"

Autorentext

Walter J. Ciszek, S.J., with Daniel Flaherty, S.J.

Klappentext

A deeply personal story of one man's spiritual odyssey and the unflagging faith which enabled him to survive the ordeal that wrenched his body and spirit to near collapse.

Captured by a Russian army during World War II and convicted of being a "Vatican spy," Jesuit Father Walter J. Ciszek spent 23 agonizing years in Soviet prisons and the labor camps of Siberia. Only through an utter reliance on God's will did he manage to endure the extreme hardship. He tells of the courage he found in prayer--a courage that eased the loneliness, the pain, the frustration, the anguish, the fears, the despair. For, as Ciszek relates, the solace of spiritual contemplation gave him an inner serenity upon which he was able to draw amidst the "arrogance of evil" that surrounded him. Ciszek learns to accept the inhuman work in the infamous Siberian salt mines as a labor pleasing to God. And through that experice, he was able to turn the adverse forces of circumstance into a source of positive value and a means of drawing closer to the compassionate and never-forsaking Divine Spirit.

He Leadeth Me is a book to inspire all Christians to greater faith and trust in God--even in their darkest hour. As the author asks, "What can ultimately trouble the soul that accepts every moment of every day as a gift from the hands of God and strives always to do his will?"

Zusammenfassung
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A deeply personal true story of one man’s spiritual odyssey and the unflagging faith which enabled him to survive the ordeal that wrenched his body and spirit to near collapse

Captured by a Russian army during World War II and convicted of being a “Vatican spy,” Jesuit Father Walter J. Ciszek spent twenty-three agonizing years in Soviet prisons and the labor camps of Siberia. Only through an utter reliance on God’s will did he manage to endure the extreme hardship. He tells of the courage he found in prayer—a courage that eased the loneliness, the pain, the frustration, the anguish, the fears, the despair. For, as Ciszek relates, the solace of spiritual contemplation gave him an inner serenity upon which he was able to draw amidst the “arrogance of evil” that surrounded him. Ciszek learns to accept the inhuman work in the infamous Siberian salt mines as a labor pleasing to God. And through that experience, he was able to turn the adverse forces of circumstance into a source of positive value and a means of drawing closer to the compassionate and never-forsaking Divine Spirit.

He Leadeth Me is a book to inspire all Christians to greater faith and trust in God—even in their darkest hour. As the author asks, “What can ultimately trouble the soul that accepts every moment of every day as a gift from the hands of God and strives always to do his will?”

Leseprobe
Albertyn

The Red Army is here. They’ve taken the town. The Soviets are here.” The news spread like panic through the small village of Albertyn, Poland, on October 17, 1939. I had just finished Mass and breakfast on that memorable morning, when bewildered parishionerscame to the mission to tell me the news. It was news we had feared ever since it had become clear that Germany and Russia were dividing up Poland. But now our fears were a reality. The Red Army was in Albertyn.  

One by one the parishioners came crowding to the mission to ask my opinion, to seek my advice, looking for a word of hope or consolation. They were worried about their families. They were worried about their sons in the Polish Army, or their husbands inthe government. They were worried about their children and what would happen to them all. I tried to be reassuring, but what could I really say? I had no answers to their immediate questions of fact, and how could I reassure them about the future or comfortthem in the midst of the turmoil that had overtaken the town? What could I tell them except to pray and to trust in God?  

Even in that I felt foolish. 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. The crises they faced now were not family quarrels or sickness or the loss of a loved one. The advice they wanted now was not about things common to every parish and learned by every priest. Suddenly, our whole world, theirsand mine, had changed.  

It is impossible to describe the feeling that comes over you at such a time. The feeling that somehow, in an instant of time, everything is changed and nothing again will ever be quite the same. That tomorrow will never again be like yesterday. That thevery trees, the grass, the air, the daylight are no longer the same, for the world has changed. It is a feeling impossible to describe, and yet one that every wife who has lost a husband knows well, one that every child who has tasted evil for the first timeor faced a sudden crisis has experienced. It is that feeling that leaves the heart saying, “Oh, if only I could turn back the clock to before it happened, if only it had never happened, if only I had it to do over again.”  

My fears were vague that morning, though the feeling of inadequacy was very real. And the fears themselves quickly ceased to be vague and became quite real in turn. Arrests soon followed the arrival of the Red Army. Property was confiscated. There werecountless interrogations, threats, and intimidations, as the Communists endeavored to round up everyone they considered a threat to them or to their new order.  

In all this, the Church itself became a special target for attack. The Oriental rite church at our mission was closed immediately; the Latin rite parish was allowed to function for a while for those few families who dared to attend. The rest of our missionbuildings were taken over by the Red Army and used to quarter troops. A propaganda campaign was mounted against the Church and against the priests; we labored under a campaign of constant harassment and incidents large and small. And it was…