WHEN FATHER WALTER CISZEK GAVE ME ENCOURAGEMENT

 

Now that I'm a small-time author, I am asked a lot as to my favorite book, and it surprises my audience when I tell them it is Fr. Walter Ciszek's memoir, He Leadeth Me.  Father Walter is pictured in the prayer card above; he had a fantastic twinkle in his eye. His cornflower blue eyes had the dancing light of joy. Such a playful disposition, it's like he's about to ask you to join him in a practical joke. 

You'd never think he had gone undercover to the Soviet Union in 1939 using a fake name to hide his identity as a priest, been found out and sent to Lubyanka Prison for 5 years where he was mostly in solitary confinement and interrogated mercilessly. His captors doped him (perhaps with heroin) so they could coerce him into confessing to a crime he had not committed. For this he was sent to the north of Siberia where he did hard labor for 15 years, all the while performing his ministry in secret. For clandestine Holy Mass, he and his willing accomplices fermented raisins into wine - all under the noses of the brutish guards.

In 1963, Fr. Walter was able to return to his native US in circumstances straight out of a spy novel. I have a devotion to Father Walter. When I was planning on writing about Russia and when I was writing about Our Lady speaking in French to reach Russian ears I doubted myself as to whether I'd ever make arguments clear and fathomable and didn't sound like the abstruse essay of a student hoping to get a place on a degree program. I actually gave up writing the piece 3 times. 

I prayed to Father Walter. And then I went out for a burger with an extra slice of onions and boiling black coffee. I was writing a lot of notes, and got chatting to the older couple next to me who asked me as to my profession, and I told them I'm a scribbler and helper to other authors. They explained that they'd like to read more, but his busy life as a cop and hers as a caretaker left them exhausted. They seemed politely hesitant as to whether they'd ever read anything I ever wrote. 

Seemingly out of nowhere, they asked me my favorite book. I told them it was He Leadeth Me, and they burst out in the big smiles and gasped for joy. Their faces glowed. The husband exclaimed, "I knew Father Walter! He was a dear family friend! I served his Mass! We were Russian Catholics who practically canonized Father Walter in our home!" He explained that in the blood tide of Communist Russia his parents had struggled to keep the Faith in secret, had escaped and then had developed a deep friendship with Father Walter during his trips to Los Angeles. His family and Fr. Walter were kindred spirits, they knew the lived experience of Communism. 

I said to them that I found Fr. Walter's last name to be ironic; the last syllable is "zek" which was the slang term among Gulag inmates for "prisoner", and they both said, "yes! I know, right?"

They said they keep a low-profile as to all they know about the Communist Russia where Fr. Walter was tortured and treated as a slave because "it just wouldn't fly with the woke people around us." But they could not have been more warmly encouraging to me - "do whatever you can to make Fr. Walter known" and "some of the purest happiness I've ever known was just kneeling beside him."

I don't think such "random" meetings can be "coincidence", I mean, in all of L.A., how rare would it be to meet accidentally someone who was so close to Father Walter? I hold that it was Fr. Walter who arranged the meeting, to give me a certain confidence. 

You may contact The Fr. Walter Ciszek Prayer League to request prayer or tell them or an answered prayer.