Orchard Lake grad, Jesuit imprisoned in Russia a voice for our times, editor says

Featured during Lent on the popular Hallow app, Fr. Walter Ciszek's message of finding God in all circumstances as powerful as ever

FRONT ROYAL, Va. — Just about everything in Fr. Walter Ciszek’s life didn't go according to plan.

The Pennsylvania-born Polish-American attended St. Mary's Preparatory and St. Mary's College in Orchard Lake, Michigan, planning to become a diocesan priest for the Diocese of Allentown. He ended up joining the Society of Jesus.

He was sent to Rome to study the Russian Byzantine rite to minister to the Catholics in the newly established Soviet Union. He was apprehended by the secret police shortly after arriving in the country.

Upon returning to the United States after 23 years in Lubyanka Prison in Moscow and later the gulag as a “Vatican spy,” Fr. Ciszek was released to the United States and was directed by his superiors to write a book about his journey. The book he really wanted to write was about his spiritual reflections during his captivity.

Nothing went according to plan for Fr. Ciszek, but he still found the presence of God in his life, and it is that spiritual insight that makes him such a powerful voice people still seek out today, 40 years after his death.

John DeJak, headmaster of Chelsea Academy in Front Royal, Va., co-edited Fr. Ciszek’s third book, “With God in America: The Spiritual Journey of an Unlikely Jesuit,” along with Fr. Marc Lindeijer, SJ, while the two were studying Fr. Ciszek’s life for his canonization cause.

Their research led to diaries, notes on spiritual lectures he gave and accounts of the people who encountered Fr. Ciszek when he was staying at Fordham University in the Bronx, N.Y. Those encounters and reflections form the backbone of “With God in America,” complimenting Fr. Ciszek’s more famous works, “With God in Russia,” and “He Leadeth Me.”

“What Fr. Ciszek’s life really hits on is the will of God, finding out what it is, and how does one conform to it as it is played out in everyone’s life day to day,” DeJak told Detroit Catholic. “He has his own very poignant experiences, and it is through those experiences that he can extrapolate and articulate a relationship with God and following the will of God that is applicable to every person.”

Fr. Ciszek’s story is especially in the limelight this Lent. His life story and reflections are being highlighted in the popular Hallow app, and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict has put an added spotlight on the Church in Eastern Europe, but DeJak said Fr. Ciszek has always been a popular read since his death in 1984.

“Fr. Ciszek has always had a following; he has never not been popular from the time of his death. People know him, become his friends from reading his books,” DeJak said. “He has always had that (ability to) capture the faithful’s souls.”

Walter Ciszek was born one of 13 children to Martin and Mary Ciszek in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, a blue-collar coal mining town where young Walter was raised in a devout Catholic home, but according to DeJak, “was a bit of a hellion” as a kid.

At 13, he surprised his family by saying he wanted to become a priest, moving Michigan to study at Orchard Lake, a school intended for the descendants of Polish immigrants to become priests in the United States, ministering to the growing Polonia community.

But soon enough, plans changed.

“While there, he attended a retreat given by a Jesuit, and it inspired him to join the Jesuits, thinking he didn’t want to be a diocesan priest,” DeJak said. “He entered the New York-Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus in Fordham, New York.”

Ciszek was finishing his course of studies in 1928 when Pope Pius XI was calling for priests to go to Russia to minister to the Catholics being persecuted by the Bolshevik communist regime that took over the country in 1917, suppressing the Church and all forms of religion.

Ciszek answered the call, going to Rome to study at the Pontifical Institute for Russian Studies, which was established specifically for this mission. There, Ciszek learned the Byzantine-Russian liturgy of the Catholic Church, learned Russian, and upon his ordination in 1937, was sent to the Polish-Soviet border, looking for a way to get into the Soviet Union to begin his mission.

Fr. Ciszek was serving at a mission near the Polish-Soviet border when World War II began in 1939, in which Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the West, soon to be followed by the Soviet Union invading Poland from the East.

Shortly after Poland’s fall, Fr. Ciszek accompanied laborers into Russia to begin his ministry. But shortly after arriving in the country, he was arrested by the NKVD, the precursor of the KGB, the Soviet Union secret state police.

Fr. Ciszek was sentenced to five years of solitary confinement in the famed Lubiaonka Prison in Moscow, before being released under supervision to work in the gulag camps, where he labored for 18 years.

Fr. Ciszek spent 23 years in the Soviet Union — during which time his family and religious order wrote him off for dead — before he was able to send a letter to his sister, alerting her that he was alive, starting the process for him to be repatriated to the United States in 1963.

“His fellow Jesuits and his family were praying for the repose of his soul,” DeJak said. “He was finally able to get a letter to his sister out of Russia, and if you can imagine in 1955, they thought he had been dead since 1947, but here in 1955, they got this letter and realized he was alive.”

Fr. Ciszek returned to the United States in 1963, and upon returning, his superiors asked him to recount his experiences. With the help of fellow Jesuit Fr. Daniel Flaherty, Fr. Ciszek wrote “With God in Russia” in 1964, detailing Fr. Ciszek’s time behind the Iron Curtain.

But for as much spirituality one can glean from the harrowing account of an American priest imprisoned in the gulag, “With God in Russia,” wasn’t really the book Fr. Ciszek wanted to write, DeJak said.

Fr. Ciszek wanted to talk about his spiritual ordeal in Russia, the encounters and ministry he was able to do in the gulag. How through all the discomfort, cold, hunger and abandonment he felt, he was always with God.

That led to “He Leadeth Me,” published in 1973, again with the help of Fr. Flaherty, who passed away in 2019.

“He wrote ‘He Leadeth Me,’ focusing on spiritual lessons he learned in various instances and encounters and times in Russia that were meaningful to him,” DeJak said. “Through those encounters and experiences, he shares the lessons he learned from them. It’s probably one of the greatest spiritual books of the 20th century, something that is referred to again and again as a modern spiritual classic, and many people benefit from it today, as we see with the Hallow app.”

DeJak called “He Leadeth Me” Fr. Ciszek’s “spiritual cornerstone,” the book people should really delve into to glean the spirituality of the missionary who was willing to go to the ends of the earth to bring God to the people.

“Whether you are married, single, old, young, professional or blue collar, there are themes, issues of the spiritual life of one’s union with God and relationships with the supernatural that he really hits on and everyone can relate to it,” DeJak said. “He is kind of writing for the everyman, if you will, cutting to the core of the spiritual issues.”

Fr. Ciszek moved to Fordham University after returning to the United States, guiding spiritual retreats and traveling the country to give talks at conferences and relate his experiences in captivity.

Elaine Cusat, a board member of the Shenandoah-based Fr. Walter Ciszek Prayer League, remembers first seeing Fr Ciszek after he gave a talk at the University of Scranton.

Weeks later, Cusat was asked to cook for a fundraiser where Fr. Ciszek was speaking. After the presentation and dinner, Cusat was cleaning up when she got a small glimpse into Fr. Ciszek’s spirituality.

“I was so nervous; I was just young and learning how to cook, so I made meatloaf, potatoes and carrots, and I remember cleaning up after dinner, when Fr. Ciszek came up to me,” Cusat said. “He said, Elaine, you see that in the pan?’ I said, 'Yes, Father.' He asked me to put some water in the pan, scrape it all up and put it aside for his lunch tomorrow. He didn’t want anything to go to waste; he revered the food that we cooked and was grateful to every person who came to see him speak, who cooked for him, who would be with him.”

The Fr. Walter Ciszek Prayer League works on promoting the canonization cause for Fr. Ciszek, a Servant of God, whose cause is currently being handled by the Jesuits in Rome.

The league sends out a newsletter, updating people on the cause, along with highlighting Fr. Ciszek’s books and spirituality.

Cusat said just spending a short amount of time with Fr. Ciszek provided a profound insight into his spirituality, demeanor and holiness.

“Just his warmth and love, and he knew exactly who you were and allowed you to be who you were in God’s presence,” Cusat said. “I see God’s hand in so many things, because of him. We have a prayer for his cause of canonization, an intercession prayer, a prayer of surrender. We just want people to learn more about his life, his expectations to be a priest and serve the people, and then everything changed and he learned to accept the will of God.”

DeJak and Fr. Lindeijer corresponded about doing research about Fr. Ciszek’s time in the United States, thinking the added research could bolster Fr. Ciszek’s cause. But after reading so much about his witness and interactions with the faithful in the United States, the two knew they needed to turn his work into a book, Fr. Ciszek’s third book, “With God in America.”

“With God in America” completes Fr. Ciszek’s story, where his time in the gulag is “another seminary,” DeJak said, where he received more formation before beginning his ministry of spiritual accompaniment and counseling in the United States, where the Church and society were undergoing major change amidst the Second Vatican Council and the social changes of the 1960s.

“Father’s stories in the two books he wrote, ‘With God in Russia,’ and, ‘He Leadeth Me,’ end when he leaves Russia; they end in 1963 when he is on the plane, coming back to the United States,” DeJak said. “A question often asked is, ‘What happened next?’ Certainly, the Russian odyssey is heroic and moving, and the spiritual depth he learned in service in Russia is apparent, but we wanted to contextualize his time in America, his ministry of helping Catholics in the United States understand where the will of God is in their lives and how to bring that in close union with him in these tumultuous times.”

DeJak said the times currently facing society and the Church, amidst major upheaval and confusion that seem to be overwhelming at times, greatly mirror the United States to which Fr. Ciszek returned in the 1960s, and from reading about his ministry, his spiritual reflections, his surrender to God’s will, readers will find a comfort in the spirituality of Fr. Ciszek.

“They will find in ‘With God in America’ a confirmation of what they read in the previous two books in terms of the spiritual lessons and the type of person who Fr. Walter was, but also enhances who Fr. Walter was with personal anecdotes and details from the people in close contact with him."

Those anecdotes included stories of Fr. Ciszek's counseling individuals who came to him for advice, from an unmarried pregnant woman to women religious who were trying to live celibate lives in the "difficult circumstances" following the Second Vatican Council, to "his counseling of a homeless man in the Bronx, who needed a sandwich and someone to talk to," DeJak said.

"Or even just opening up the Fordham fields, so the kids across the street can play ball. The book shows who Fr. Ciszek really was,” DeJak added.

Fr. Ciszek’s message resonates with people today because the message is so timely: surrender to the will of God, and finding Him in every encounter.

In a time when the news is filled with war, political strife, economic anxiety and debates about the very fabric of family and society, Fr. Ciszek, the missionary-turned-prisoner, shows what it means to find God in all His designs, DeJak said.

“The faith we have, that the Church teaches, is faith in Christ that is demanded in all of us, one that totally gives oneself to the Lord,” DeJak said. “Our Lord has willed whatever we encountered this day, whether they be good or bad. Do we overcome God’s obstacles in the way God wants us to, with virtue and forbearance? That's the core of (Fr. Ciszek's) message — that through those encounters, we come to achieve sanctity, and ultimately, our salvation.”