1. “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.” – Walter J. Ciszek
2. “work as if everything depended upon him and pray as if everything depended upon God.” – Walter J. Ciszek
3. “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
4. “realized almost immediately that I was asking the questions, raising the doubts, that I had promised not to ask in abandoning myself to the will of God.” – Walter J. Ciszek
5. “My ways are not your ways, says the Lord; as far as the heavens are above the earth are my ways above your ways.” – Walter J. Ciszek
6. “is not really a question of trust in God at all, for we want very much to trust him; it is really a question of our ultimate belief in his existence and his providence, and it demands the purest act of faith.” – Walter J. Ciszek
7. “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
8. “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
9. “An attitude of readiness to try over and over again in our quest to find God and his will in prayer is itself a grace and a blessing of major consequence.” – Walter J. Ciszek
10. “Man was created to praise, revere, and serve God in this world and to be happy with him forever in the next.” – Walter J. Ciszek
11. “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
12. “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
13. “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
14. “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
15. “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
16. “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
17. “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
18. “I knew what my answer would be. I had no doubts, no fears, no hesitation. I knew what I was going to do next, what I had wanted all my life, what the mission to Albertyn had been meant for in God’s providence.” – Walter J. Ciszek
19. “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
20. “I learned there the lesson which would keep me going in the years to come: religion, prayer, and love of God do not change reality, but they give it a new meaning.” – Walter J. Ciszek
21. “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
22. “There would be a tomorrow, and we would have to live in it—and God would be there as well.” – Walter J. Ciszek
23. “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. And it was through the struggle to do this that spiritual growth and a greater appreciation of his will took place.” – Walter J. Ciszek
24. “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
25. “Death to them was not an end, but a beginning, a passage into eternal life.” – Walter J. Ciszek
26. “I chose, consciously and willingly, to abandon myself to God’s will, to let go completely of every last reservation. I” – Walter J. Ciszek
27. “The service of God must take preference over all else.” – Walter J. Ciszek
28. “I had to learn to believe that, no matter what the circumstances, and to act accordingly—with complete trust and confidence in his will, his wisdom, and his grace.” – Walter J. Ciszek
29. “accept all things, come what may, as from his hands.” – Walter J. Ciszek
30. “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
31. “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 parishioners came 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.” – Walter J. Ciszek
32. “We destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social.And your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the social conditions under which you educate, by the intervention, direct or indirect, of society, by means of schools, etc.? The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class.” – Walter J. Ciszek
33. “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 his obedience.” – Walter J. Ciszek
34. “Somehow, by the trials and tribulations of this life, our souls must be purified of this dross of self if we are to become ultimately acceptable to God.” – Walter J. Ciszek
35. “conditions were degrading only if we let ourselves become degraded.” – Walter J. Ciszek
36. “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
37. “Between God and the individual soul, however, there are no insignificant moments; this is the mystery of divine providence.” – Walter J. Ciszek
38. “We are afraid to abandon ourselves totally into God’s hands for fear he will not catch us as we fall.” – Walter J. Ciszek
39. “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
40. “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
41. “Striving instead to eliminate all self-will, to accept God’s will revealed in the circumstances of daily life, is the surest way to achieve growth in conformity to the will of God.” – Walter J. Ciszek
42. “there would be no “humiliation” if we had learned to put self in its place, to see ourselves in proper perspective before God and other men.” – Walter J. Ciszek
43. “He wants men of greatest generosity and self-sacrificing,” he wrote, “who renounce their own will and embrace his will instead.” So, “Lord, if that is thy will in regard to me, unworthy one, I embrace it fully and promise with thy grace to remain faithful to the end to thy most holy will. This is my life, my joy, my strength and courage.” – Walter J. Ciszek
44. “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
45. “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
46. “Faith is inseparable from love; out of these two twins hope is born.” – Walter J. Ciszek
47. “An attitude of readiness to try over and over again in our quest to find God and his will in prayer is itself a grace and a blessing of major consequence.” – Walter J. Ciszek