Today as we ponder these two great pillars of the Church, Ss. Peter and Paul, I have the American born Jesuit priest Fr. Walter Ciszek on my mind. If you haven’t read his spiritual autobiography, He Leadeth Me, I highly recommend it. It is both an incredible story and a treasure trove of spiritual wisdom. Fr. Ciszek’s cause for canonization is currently open, with his official title being Servant of God, which is the first step along the path toward being declared a saint.
He Leadeth Me chronicles the intense period of Fr. Ciszek’s life where he ended up becoming a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union. Fr. Ciszek had gotten permission from his Superior to sneak into the Soviet Union under the false identity of a Polish refugee. He worked at a logging camp for about a year, covertly ministering to people there, until the Soviet authorities caught him. He was accused by the Soviets of being a spy for the Nazis and the Vatican and sent to Lubyanka Prison in Moscow. He remained in that prison for 5 years, most of them spent in solitary confinement, interrupted occasionally by interrogation and torture. He later went to work in labor camps and at a mine where there was an uprising.
There are many inspiring things about Fr. Ciszek’s story, but one that really strikes me is how, with the help of God’s grace, Fr. Ciszek remained at peace in the midst of such extreme conditions. He found the ability to accept that whatever situation he found himself in day by day was the will of God for him. As Fr. Ciszek himself states in He Leadeth Me:
It is a very human temptation to feel frustrated by circumstances, to feel overwhelmed and helpless in the face of the established order—whether that order is an NKVD prison, or the whole Soviet system, or “the status quo,” or “city hall,” or “the rat race,” or the “establishment,” or social pressures, or the cultural environment, or the whole, oppressive rotten world! Under the worst imaginable circumstances, a man remains a man with free will, and God stands ready to assist him with his grace. Indeed, more than that, God expects him to act in these circumstances, this situation, as he would have him act. For these situations, too, these people and places and things, are God’s will for him now.
What an incredible testimony to Fr. Ciszek’s ability to see God’s grace and His will in the midst of his trials! Even in sufferings that have driven many to insanity, Fr. Ciszek not only survived, but kept the faith and served God through them all. I pray that we can all take a page from his book. I believe the Holy Spirit brought Fr. Ciszek to mind as I was pondering our readings this Sunday, because his courage and clear-sightedness in trial reflects that same thing in the lives of the two Saints we celebrate today: St. Peter and St. Paul.
It is important to know how much both of them realized their dependency on God’s grace. Just listen to the words of St. Paul from his second letter to Timothy, which we heard in the second reading:
The Lord stood by me and gave me strength,
so that through me the proclamation might be completed
and all the Gentiles might hear it.
And I was rescued from the lion’s mouth.
The Lord will rescue me from every evil threat
and will bring me safe to his heavenly Kingdom.
To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.
St. Paul is writing this letter from jail to his beloved co-worker, St. Timothy. He is obviously in a place of suffering and trial, yet his heart is firmly founded on the hope that Jesus brings, a hope that goes beyond his current circumstances. Those words he was able to write, full of confidence in the Lord’s power to deliver him, were born of the grace that God had continually poured out in him. This was a man who had been beaten, stoned, falsely accused, shipwrecked and much more for Jesus’ sake, yet he was still able to say, “the Lord will rescue me from every evil threat and will bring me safe to his heavenly kingdom.” This is the final letter St. Paul wrote before his martyrdom, and it shows us just how much trust he had in the Lord. St. Paul knew well that the deliverance of the Lord wasn’t so much from exterior threats, but from the evil threat of an interior loss of faith. And because of God’s abundant grace, St. Paul kept the faith.
The same was true for St. Peter. As we heard in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, St. Peter had found himself in a seemingly impossible situation, guarded by multiple soldiers and in chains. But none of this earthly show of power was too much for the Lord. He delivered St. Peter from his chains and imprisonment so that he could continue his mission of being that Rock for the early Church. You can hear St. Peter’s faith in those words he spoke after he realized that his escape at the hands of an angel wasn’t just a dream:
“Now I know for certain
that the Lord sent his angel
and rescued me from the hand of Herod
and from all that the Jewish people had been expecting.”
St. Peter’s certitude was born from that fire of the Holy Spirit burning within him, giving him the knowledge that nothing would spoil God’s providential design. St. Peter, St. Paul and Fr. Ciszek all came to know through God’s grace that no exterior thing can ultimately shake us if we lean on that interior grace that the Lord gives.
I pray that you take that lesson from these two great saints and that saintly modern day priest. God knows the plans He has for your life. He has already seen all of those situations you will find yourself in and has given you the grace to be strong in Him day by day. The only question is whether you will confidently lean into that grace and let God embolden you to live and act by it. As you receive Jesus today in the Eucharist, pray that He will help you to live “through Him, with Him and in Him.” If you do, no exterior trial will be able to defeat you.
+ Heavenly Father, thank you for the example of interior strength that we have in Ss. Peter and Paul. Jesus, thank you for giving them and all of us the grace we need to run the race and keep the faith in our lives. Holy Spirit, help us to open our hearts more to you today to give us that strength we need. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen. +
Ss. Peter and Paul, pray for us!