Great News: New Edition of "With God in Russia"

This is indeed an extraordinary memoir of faith and belief in absolute stubborn practicality.

It must be sixty years ago, at twenty-two, when I first read “With God In Russia” by the Servant of God, Jesuit priest Walter Ciszek, happily being republished . I want to re-read Fr. Ciszek’s story of Faith-heroism, his life a modern part of the Church’s “white” martyrology. It makes sense to me that anyone who sheds even one drop of blood for Christ is effectively a martyr and Venerable Fr. Ciszek for sure shed more than one drop of his blood in beatings and body drudgery in that Communist prison camp! In God’s own way and in God’s own time when beatification happens, white, not red vestments will be used at Mass, but as far as I’m concerned the white will have streaks of red! I don’t remember much detail of Father Ciszek’s time in prison, except that it was filled with tremendous physical, psychological and spiritual suffering, so overwhelming that at one point the Servant of God was driven to the brink of despair and contemplated physically harming himself. His strength of spirit fortified by the Divine Gifts of Courage and Fortitude, assured his practice of heroic virtue and he patiently endured. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem and with other saints he said “No!” In so doing he joined the company of Saint Joseph Libermann, who admitted that crossing the many bridges in Parish was for him a struggle, as the compulsion to jump over the railing was ever present! Saints are so human, thank God! When I reread his life, I’ll find out if Fr. Ciszek managed to celebrate Mass clandestinely which must have happened, as did Cardinal Francis Xavier Van Thuan, another prisoner for Christ by Vietnamese Communists, turning his cupped hand into a chalice, containing three drops of wine and one drop of water and a sliver of bread. The Saints are wonderful and I feel happy that the Servant of God, Walter Ciszek is among them! May he and (they) pray for us!