A Lenten read, an Easter joy

For many years now during Lent, I have made it a custom to read books relevant to the season. I keep in mind what a spiritual director said about reading suitable spiritual books as a worthy investment for the soul.

Over a year ago, I read “With God in Russia,” the incredibly inspiring story of a Catholic priest, Fr. Walter J. Ciszek, SJ, who spent 23 years in Soviet prisons and labor camps. Reading his account felt like witnessing action-packed, gripping and suspenseful events in the life of a political prisoner. Accused of being a “Vatican spy,” Fr. Ciszek paid the price for the allegation by spending years in solitary confinement, working under the harshest conditions in Siberian labor camps and eventually living as a “free man” with “restricted” status in a Russian town after serving his prison term.

Recorded as dead in 1947 (a requiem mass was celebrated for his soul), only to emerge more than two decades later, Fr. Ciszek returned to America through negotiations that led to a prisoner swap. That he survived an enormous ordeal testifies to the astonishing power of faith and how he personified, in the most authentic sense, what Scriptures teach about loving one’s adversary.

While written from the perspective of a Jesuit priest (acknowledging his limitations as a writer, he co-wrote his spiritual memoir with a fellow Jesuit, Fr. Daniel L. Flaherty), Fr. Ciszek’s story fondly rings even to ordinary people like me. His extraordinary experiences serve as profound touchstones toward a meaningful Lenten spiritual journey leading to the joy of Easter.

“With God…” was a mélange of heart-stopping action – his months-long journey in boxcar trains shared with thieves and common criminals kept me wondering about his daily ordeals while en route to Siberia; melancholy – my eyes blurred from tears while reading about his loneliness and longings, such as when yearning for the Eucharist, he and a fellow priest ventured into the woods, found a stump of a tree, which they used for an altar to celebrate mass; and peppered with sardonic humor – I chuckled at how he practiced the “profession of a seamstress” by shaping a large fishbone into a “serviceable needle” to mend his tattered shirts and socks.

Following the first book’s publication success in 1964, Fr. Ciszek wrote, “He Leadeth Me,” again with Fr. Flaherty. That his second book (published in 1973) was in part dedicated “to my Russian friends,” speaks of Fr. Ciszek’s affection for the country and its people despite his life of anguish, misery and oppression which, thankfully, led to his freedom and redemption.

In “He Leadeth…” Fr. Ciszek dived deeply into his soul and dichotomized how his insurmountable suffering led to a more transformative faith and greater trust in God. So immense was his trust that he solely allowed God to take control of his life. Yet, human as he was, he admitted to have gone through terrible moments of self-doubt. On years spent in solitary confinement, with a “surging sea of thoughts and memories and questionings and fears that is the human mind, you either learn to control or channel it or you can go mad,” Fr. Ciszek only had one recourse: “But above all I prayed.”

It amazes me that Fr. Ciszek felt neither hatred nor rancor toward his persecutors. How he maintained his inner peace could serve as an antidote to our present-day cancel culture, when the slightest act of provocation triggers hostility and polarization. Having lived among the Russian working class after his release, Fr. Ciszek expressed his “high regard” for them and admired their hospitality and sincerity. Serving clandestinely as a priest while celebrating masses in boloks (shacks) transformed into “parishes,” he “often marveled at the way these people clung to the faith in this professedly atheistic country.”

Since Lent is a time when we Catholics commemorate the passion of Christ, “He Leadeth Me” presents deep contemplations on how we could try to make sense of our own agonies (maybe not in equal proportions to Fr. Ciszek’s) and unite them with that of Jesus’s. These challenges could be in the areas of health, work, relationships, finance, experiences of loneliness, invisibility, separation, discrimination and more.

Between fight and flight, the believers in us instead turn to faith, cling on to hope and depend on divine providence. We trust because as Fr. Ciszek has perfectly revealed: “Through the long years of isolation and suffering, God has led me to an understanding of life and his love that only those who have experienced it can fathom.”

At the height of his desolation, did Fr. Ciszek ever question his decision to go to Russia? His discernment was: “No, I came because I was convinced God wanted me there.” For him, it was all worth the sacrifice. He looked beyond himself and was certain, “it is the same sacrifice demanded of and made by so many people: missionaries, service men, married couples, young people leaving home for the first time.”

And if I may add in the context our current realities: by migrants, refugees and our OFWs. The prison camp had become Fr. Ciszek’s “school of prayer,” where he believed he was shaped by God’s unbounded love and constancy. God’s unbounded love and constancy are themes that are often brought to light when I hear or read about stories of redemption and survival that are beyond human understanding.

Fr. Ciszek’s astounding journey – his torment, distress and humiliation, not to mention how hard labor battered his body but never his spirit – is undeniably a wellspring of Easter joy. His witness echoes enduring lessons in faith, humility, compassion, gratitude, devotion to one’s vocation and the power of the human spirit.

They resound more deeply in these interesting times when Catholic Christians celebrate 2025 as the Jubilee of Hope. His was a life that’s equally fascinating and inspiring and a story that has to be shared and told in both the spiritual and secular realms.