Walter J. Ciszek > 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

“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

“if you are in a situation or difficulty, you can make a U-turn; instead of putting the blame on something outside or on someone else, look within yourself to see how you have contributed to the problem, and then find a way to restore peace to the situation.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, With God in America: The Spiritual Legacy of an Unlikely Jesuit

“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

“no matter what my small sufferings are, I have a choice. I can either let them make me bitter, or I can meet them with the confidence that God will not abandon me.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, With God in Russia: The Inspiring Classic Account of a Catholic Priest's Twenty-three Years in Soviet Prisons and Labor Camps

“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

“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

“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

“You see, only the humble man or woman can teach Christ, can give him and his love to others, because the proud man or woman just can’t really have Christ. The proud person is so filled with himself that there is no room for Christ. And I can’t in any way give what I do not have. I can’t give Christ if I don’t have him myself. The wonder of humility is that it teaches us that we are nothing: that we have nothing of ourselves to give to others; that no matter how brilliant or holy we are, all this is from God.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, With God in America: The Spiritual Legacy of an Unlikely Jesuit

“Although, as God, he needed no glorification, as man, he did bring about the glorification of his human body through his final suffering. He rose because He died; he was glorified because he suffered. He could have had the glory and the peace and the unending joy in his body at any time, because he was God and he had a right to it. But the fact remains that he had none of these things until after he suffered. We have many, many examples from the life of Christ, but there is none greater than his suffering. He taught you and me how to live with it. If he cried, cannot we? If he showed hurt in his life, cannot we? If he begged to be relieved, cannot we? If he even complained to God, will God punish us if, in the midst of our hurt or pain, we complain to him, Our Father?”
― Walter J. Ciszek, With God in America: The Spiritual Legacy of an Unlikely Jesuit

“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

“And each one of us drives love from our lives, drives the longing, the desire for happiness and peace from our lives, each time we run from generosity. There is no love, there is no peace, there is no joy without him. He and he alone is our reward exceedingly great; no physical comfort, no thing, no person can ever truly fill our lives.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, With God in America: The Spiritual Legacy of an Unlikely Jesuit

“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

“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

“Children are told to humor their elders who still believe in such things and have never had the scientific and technical training that would show them how incompatible such notions are with modern science.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, With God in America: The Spiritual Legacy of an Unlikely Jesuit

“It was as if my whole life, in God’s plan, had pointed to this moment. I could remember vividly that day so long ago, during the second year of my noviceship at St. Andrew’s in New York, when our novice master read us a letter from Pius XI asking for volunteers to join a new Russian mission just opened in Rome. Even as he read the letter, something within me stirred. I could hardly wait for the conference to finish so I could go to the novice master and volunteer for this new Russian apostolate.”
― 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

“until the body fails us, or pains us, or forces itself upon our attention by some little twinge or complete collapse, we tend to take for granted this first and most precious of God’s gifts to man or to give it short shrift.”
― Walter J. Ciszek Sj, 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

“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

“He desired nothing more than to serve God . . . and nothing less. As he shared his story, bit by bit, during the days of my retreat, he gave the clear impression that his life was not about him but rather a reflection of the movement and action of God in his life. He liked sharing his story, because it allowed him to share about God. He was faithful because he knew to the core of his being that God was faithful, and he clearly enjoyed helping others to the same understanding. He was a living example of both the simplicity and profundity of what it means to be a person of faith.”
― Walter J. Ciszek, With God in America: The Spiritual Legacy of an Unlikely Jesuit

“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

“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

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