The Catholic Book Club discussion

5. Life in Lubianka is described in similar terms as in Solyenitsin's novel "The First Circle" and also reminds Winston Smith's experience in "Nineteen Eighty Four." Ciszek confesses his failure to recollect his mind during the beginning of his solitary confinement. Remembering Cardinal Sarah's book about the Power of Silence, would Ciszek's experience have been easier if he had practiced silent prayer during his formation years in Rome, or if he had been a Carthusian rather than a Jesuit?

There would have been no way to "practice" this kind of total isolation! The ticket is only given when you are ready to board the train, as Corrie tenBoom recounts. Surely his Jesuit formation would have included a great deal of silent prayer.

In volume 1 of The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956,Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn recounts the story of an old woman brought in for questioning for assisting an Orthodox Metropolitan to escape to Finland. Orthodox believers had put together an underground railroad of sorts, hiding the Metropolitan in homes from his city to the Finnish border. They had tracked him to her, but didn't know the next step. When threatened with torture and death she said (paraphrasing): I will never tell you. You won't win because you are afraid. You are afraid of each other, you are afraid of your bosses, you are even afraid of me. I fear nothing in this world. You can kill me now and I will be with God in heaven which is better for me.

A little later, without much effort to break her, they let her go. This probably reflects a long life lived faithfully learning humility each day. Humility is probably more difficult for priests in this situation.