Ave Maria Meditations
Now, with sudden and almost blinding clarity and simplicity, I realized I had been trying to do something with my own will and intellect that was at once too much and mostly wrong. God’s will was not hidden somewhere “out there” in the situations in which I found myself; the situations themselves reveal His will for me. What He wanted was for me to accept these situations as from His hand and to let go of the reins and place myself entirely at His disposal.
He was asking of me an act of total trust, allowing for no interference or restless striving on my part, no reservations, no exceptions, no areas where I could set conditions or seem to hesitate. He was asking a complete gift of self, nothing held back. It demanded absolute faith: faith in God’s existence, in His providence in His concern for the minutest detail, in His power to sustain me, and in His love protecting me.
It meant losing the last hidden doubt, the ultimate fear that God will not be there to bear you up. It was something like that awful eternity between anxiety and belief when a child first leans back and lets go of all support whatever, only to find that the water truly holds him up and he can float motionless and totally relaxed.
+Servant of God, Fr. Walter Ciszek
To learn more of Father’s time as a prisoner in Russia and how he came to trust totally in God, see http://www.ciszek.org/About_Ciszek.html
