Ave Maria Meditations
With all the many losses of freedom and the things happening in the world today, there is still nothing new under the sun or things happening that have not happened before. Here is a thought from Fr. Walter Ciszek who spent 23 years in the Soviet Union, 18 years as a prisoner and 15 years in a Communist labor camp.
He wrote: What was I, in comparison to the millions of atheists in the Soviet union? What was I, in comparison to the might and power of the Soviet government? What were any of us, really, in the face of the system around us, with all its organs of propaganda and powers of persecution? Yet, in God’s providence, here we were. This was the place He had chosen for us, the situation and circumstances in which He had placed us.
One thing we could do and do daily: we could seek first the kingdom of God and His justice. First of all in our own lives, and then in the lives of those around us. From the time of the apostles, twelve simple men alone and afraid, who had received the commission to go forth into the whole world to preach the good news of the kingdom, there has been no other way for the spreading of the kingdom then by the acts and the lives of individual Christians striving each day to fulfill the will of God.
+ Servant of God Fr. Walter Ciszek
Father, my late husband was friends with Father Ciszek. My husband met Father Ciszek in a chiropractor’s office here in the US. Apparently those many years in the labor camps hurt his back. My mother in law and Father Ciszek became fast friends.This was during the Vietnam War, Father Ciszek gave my husband many hours of comfort during this time and influenced his teaching career. I am always delighted to see something about Father Ciszek, hoping he and my husband are continuing their stories together in heaven.