My Dream Interview with Walter Ciszek
Me: Thank you for being here today, Father Ciszek! I cannot speak highly enough of your book He Leadeth Me. It has played such a valuable role for me in my battle with cancer. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Fr. Ciszek: I was born in America to Polish immigrants. After becoming a Jesuit priest, I answered the Pope’s call to go into Russia. Because of the nature of communism, I had to pose as a laborer and hide my true identity in order to gain access to the country. I entered Russia in 1939. Within two years, I was arrested under suspicion of being a spy. I was imprisoned from 1941 to 1955. I served my first five years in solitary confinement in the dreaded Lubianka Prison. The solitary confinement was broken up only by periods of intense interrogation involving mental and sometimes physical torture. Eventually, I was transferred to the arctic cold of the Siberian prison camps. I usually worked 12 hours a day or more with no days off. The conditions were extremely harsh and food and warm clothing were inadequate. I never expected to survive the camps. Despite this, I tried to minister to my fellow prisoners as best I could secretly saying mass and hearing confessions. These activities were conducted at great risk and could’ve resulted in beatings and other punishments if discovered. I was released in 1955 but forced to stay in Russia in the ensuing years. In 1963 through a prisoner exchange arranged by the Kennedy administration, I returned to the US and continued to serve as a priest.
Me: Your book focuses a great deal on suffering. Why do you believe that suffering exists?
Fr. Ciszek: Pain and suffering are something we all prefer not to think about, something we would sooner avoid. I remember that even as a boy I used to hate sermons or retreat talks about our Lord’s passion. When teachers or retreat masters would picture the agonies Christ underwent, I used to shudder. It all seemed so vivid and yet so useless; there seemed to be no sense in it. The thought of pain repelled me, whether in the passion or in life around me; life to me was something much too precious to distort by pain.
I remember asking myself “Why the passion? Why the pain and suffering? Is God so vindictive that he must inflict pain and suffering on those who follow him?” The answer lies not in God’s will but in the world in which we live and try to follow his will. Christ’s life and suffering were redemptive; his “apostolate” in the scheme of salvation was to restore the original order and harmony in all creation that had been destroyed by sin.
It is not the Father, not God, who inflicts suffering on us but rather the unredeemed world in which we must labor to do his will, the world in whose redemption we must share. By man’s first disobedience, says Saint Paul, sin entered the world, and through sin, death. And only by man’s obedience, by conformity to the will of God, will sin be eliminated and so suffering and death.
Me: It sounds like you’re saying that when Adam and Eve first sinned, suffering entered the world. But suffering continues to exist because we, and by we I mean all of us, all humanity, continue to sin. Do I have that right?
Fr. Ciszek: Precisely. We know that we do not always respond to God’s grace, for his grace always demands of us sacrifice, renunciation of self-will, effort, and an untiring spirit of dedication---and the practice of these things does not come easily to the young, or the tired adult, or the old. Yet that is what the kingdom of God is all about.
Knowing how little of grace is accepted and realized in our own personal lives, we can imagine how much grace is spurned or rejected by those around us. In this way we come to understand why there yet exists so much evil, sin, violence, war, hatred, immorality, persecution of religion, and denial even of God himself in the world today. These things must follow, so long as men refuse to accept God’s grace and do his will. The kingdom of God, reintroduced among men by the Incarnation of Christ cannot and will not be established until all men live each day of their lives according to his example.
Jesus’ perfect obedience to the Father’s will redeemed man’s first and continuing disobedience to that will. But, Christ’s redemptive act did not of itself restore all things; it simply made the work of redemption possible; it began our redemption. Just as all men share in the disobedience of Adam, so all men must share in the obedience of Christ to the Father’s will. Redemption will be complete only when all men share in his obedience.
Me: If I understand you, you’re saying that suffering is caused by sin not by God but that God allows suffering to occur as a path of redemption. So even though God does not cause it, it is, in a sense, willed by God because he permits it. It is up to us whether to accept the suffering that he allows and offer it back to him for the redemption of the world just as Jesus did. Do I have that right?
Fr. Ciszek: Exactly! This simple truth, that the sole purpose of man’s life on earth is to do the will of God, contains in it riches and resources enough for a lifetime. Once you have learned to live with it uppermost in mind, to see each day and each day’s activities in its light, it becomes more than a source of eternal salvation; it becomes a source of joy and happiness here on earth. The notion that the human will, when united with the divine will, can play a part in Christ’s work of redeeming all mankind is overpowering. The wonder of God’s grace transforming worthless human actions into efficient means for spreading the kingdom of God here on earth astounds the mind and humbles it to the utmost.
As long as the soul does not lose sight of this great truth, the inner joy and peace that follow upon it persist through even the saddest and gravest moments of human trial and suffering. Pain and suffering do not thereby cease to exist; the ache and anguish of body and soul do not vanish from man’s consciousness. But even they become a means of nourishing this joy, of fostering peace and conformity to God’s will, for they are seen as a continuation of Christ’s passion…as purposeful, redemptive, healing acts by which the world is reconciled to the will of the Father. Such suffering can only bring with it deep spiritual joy, for from it springs redemption and salvation, the ultimate victory over sin and further suffering and even death itself.
Me: You make it sound so easy. Is it really that easy?
Fr. Ciszek: None of this came easily to me for for I was not a disembodied spirit. Hunger could distract me, the interrogators could confuse me, a body aching in every joint and worn down by a long arctic day of grueling work could leave me totally exhausted and very much discouraged. 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 work and hardship and suffering.
If you look upon sacrifice and suffering only through the eyes of reason alone, your tendency will be to avoid as much of it as you can, for pain in itself is not pleasant. But if you can learn to see the role of pain and suffering in relation to God’s redemptive plan for the universe and each individual soul, your attitude must change. You don’t shun it when it comes upon you, but bear it in the measure of grace given to you. You see in it a putting on of Christ in the true sense of the word. Out of this insight comes joy, and an increase of hope; out of it, too, grows compassion for others and a hope that they also may be helped to understand the true meaning of life and its trials, its joys and its sufferings.
Me: It’s such a relief for me to hear that it was not easy for you to follow this path. What helped you along the way?
Fr. Ciszek: Consoling as conformity to the will of God may be for the soul, it cannot be gained simply for the asking. For my part at any rate, I learned it only through the constant practice of prayer, by trying to live in the presence of God, by trying to see all things as a manifestation of his divine will. It wasn’t always easy; nor did I always succeed. Through the hardships of the Urals, the anguish of Lubianka, through the sufferings and adversities of the prison camps, my inner struggle of soul never ceased. No matter how close to God the soul felt, how blest it was by an awareness of his presence on occasion, the realities of life were always at hand, always demanding recognition, always demanding acceptance. I had to continuously 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 that moment. And it was through the struggle to do this that spiritual growth and a greater appreciation of his will took place.
Me: Did you ever have doubts and if so, can you speak to those times?
Fr. Ciszek: Of course there were doubts; at one time there was near despair. It was not reason that sustained me then but faith. Only by faith could I find God present in every circumstance; only by faith could I penetrate the mystery of his saving grace, not by questioning it in any way but by fully cooperating with it in exactly the way he asked…So I learned by trial and error that if I wanted to preserve my interior peace and joy, I had to have constant recourse to prayer, to the eyes of faith, to humility that could make me aware of how little my own efforts meant and how dependent I was upon God’s grace even for prayer and faith itself.
Me: This complete abandonment to God’s will sounds like it is the most important part of your message, right?
Fr. Ciszek: It is. Each day, every day of our lives, God presents to us the people and opportunities upon which he expects us to act. He expects no more of us, but he will accept nothing less of us; and we fail in our promise and commitment if we do not see in the situations of every moment of every day his divine will.
The circumstances and people that God each day presents to us through his providence offer us the opportunity to perform action after action in proof of our dedication to the kingdom. Whether we are married and taking care of home and family, or studying in school, or working in an office or a factory or on a farm, matters little---in whatever we do, we must always seek first the kingdom of God.
Me: What would you say to people who doubt what you are saying or who struggle to put it into practice?
Fr. Ciszek: Between God and the individual soul, there are no insignificant moments; this is the mystery of divine providence. We see examples of this in lives around us every day. Young people planning to get married, choosing a profession, or answering a vocation to the priesthood or religious life, feel an enthusiasm and an interior joy they never knew before. Then, as the years go by, difficulties increase, and there is a constant need for more sacrifice and a renewal of spirit in the initial promise or vow taken. And then it is the test of one’s humility---the realization of one’s place before God---really begins. ”My yoke is sweet and my burden light,” said Christ, but the burdens of life, the sacrifices and self-denials, the humiliations, can be so only if we see in them the express will of God. Can there be anything more consoling that to look at a burden, or a humiliation, not just as it is in itself but as the will of God entrusted to you at that moment?
Me: Thank you so much for being with me today Fr. Ciszek and for sharing your experiences and wisdom. You are truly an inspiration. Can you leave us with one final thought that encapsulates your message before we go?
Fr. Ciszek: No action, however insignificant, if accepted and performed as from God’s hand and in conformity with his will, is anything other than redemptive and a sharing in the great work of salvation begun by Christ’s passion.
*** Fr. Ciszek passed away in 1984 after touching the lives of many through his books and faithful priesthood. I created this “dream interview” to honor his memory and spread his message. Aside from his short biographical answer at the beginning of this “interview”, his answers are taken verbatim from his book He Leadeth Me.
References:
Ciszek, Walter.He Leadeth Me. Crown Publishing Group, 1973, pp. 79-86, 121-127, 145, 164, 176, 182.