A new book will be released in October that will focus on the life and writings of Father Walter J. Ciszek, S.J., after he returned to the United States from his unjustified imprisonment in the Soviet Union.
The softcover book, “With God in America: The Spiritual Legacy of an Unlikely Jesuit: Selections from the Writings of Fr. Walter J. Ciszek, S.J.,” is co-edited by John M. DeJak and the Rev. Marc Lindeijer, S.J., and will be published by Loyola Press, the publishing arm of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). The introduction was written by Timothy Cardinal Dolan, archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York. The release date is Oct. 1.
The new book will include Ciszek’s retreat meditations, select correspondence with spiritual directees and friends, reflections on his life and counsel to people of all walks of life. It will also include reminiscences of those who were close to him and who knew him best.
Ciszek co-authored two books with the Rev. Daniel L. Flaherty, S.J., on his life in the Soviet Union — “With God in Russia” and “He Leadeth Me.” Both were published in the 1960s. “With God in Russia” has been translated into Dutch, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Korean, Polish and Slovak. “He Leadeth Me” translations are in Korean, Chinese, Polish, Slovak, French, Czech, German and Spanish.
DeJak has been devoted to Ciszek since the 1990s and was interested in writing a biography.
“I really wanted to promote Father’s cause, and I had the idea to write Father’s biography, taking into account not only what we know that he articulates in his books, but then the 20 years afterward,” DeJak said. “So I approached Father Dan Flaherty, his co-author and one time postulator, about the idea and he was extremely supportive, said I was the guy to do it, and he said to go for it. I pitched it to him and he put me in touch with Father Lindeijer, and that was right around the time he came to Shenandoah to do his research for the postulator’s office in Rome. I consider him a very dear friend now.”
Over time, DeJak and Lindeijer continued their research and kept connected and both came up with the format of a new book.
“We decided between us to come to publish another book authored by Father Walter,” DeJak said. “In our research, there were retreat notes, spiritual and scriptural reflections, personal letters to people, all of this as evidence for the cause for sainthood. We came to the conclusion that another volume is here to be published under Father’s name. These are Father’s writings. Let us focus on what he wrote and what he did for the last 20 years of his life, because we both agreed that his whole experience in Russia was more like a seminary. We’re not trying to diminish anything he did in Russia, which was tremendously heroic, but I think he was the priest for the time when he came back. He comes back when Vatican II is underway, there is a cultural revolution on the horizon in the 1960s, and he is strong and steady through this whole time, which is very apparent in his writings, his reflections and his own experience. He was a good, solid priest who is a rock in a tumultuous age.”
DeJak and Lindeijer said the book is divided into different aspects of Ciszek’s life as a Jesuit, a spiritual adviser and counselor, a letter writer and as an observer of the modern age. Some of the material has not been seen before.
“We edited this book, put introductions in and inserted some text based upon some interviews we did,” DeJak said. “We also divided the book into various themes: thankfulness, generosity, prayer, turmoil in the church. There are also other people in it who were under his direction to provide context. The book itself is Father Walter’s. We wanted to get people to understand Father’s absolute love for every individual he met and his patience and humility. He didn’t take himself seriously. Whether you were a bishop or a janitor, he didn’t care. He talked to you just the same and loved you just the same. We really wanted that to come out in the book.”
Ciszek was born Nov. 4, 1904, in Shenandoah and was a parishioner of St. Casimir Church and a member of the first eighth-grade graduating class from the parish’s parochial school. He was ordained in 1937 as the first American Jesuit in the Byzantine Catholic Rite. He secretly entered the Soviet Union in 1939 as a missionary priest and was arrested in 1941 as a Vatican spy. After 23 years as a prisoner in the Soviet Union, he was released and returned to the United States. He died Dec. 8, 1984. His cause for canonization began in the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic and was later transferred the Roman Catholic Diocese of Allentown. His cause is currently being reviewed in the Vatican.
An attorney, DeJak is the director of Institutional Advancement at Father Gabriel Richard High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. DeJak graduated from Loyola University, Chicago, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in classics: Latin and took his juris doctorate from Ave Maria School of Law, where he was privileged to study under legendary Notre Dame Professor Charles E. Rice. He practiced law and served on active duty as an officer in the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division prior to being named the founding headmaster of two new high schools in the Twin Cities area: Chesterton Academy and Holy Spirit Academy. He has taught Latin, Greek, literature, government and theology in high schools in Chicago, Cleveland and Minneapolis-St. Paul. He also served as an advocate for the Metropolitan Tribunal of the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis. His articles have appeared in Chronicles, The Wanderer, Gilbert Magazine, The Distributist Review and the St. Austin Review. He and his wife, Ann, have eight children.
A native of the Netherlands, Lindeijer works in Rome as the assistant of the Jesuit’s Postulator General, the Rev. Anton Witwer, who oversees the processes toward beatification or sanctification of Jesuits or people who have been commended to the Society of Jesus.
As Lindeijer explained his work in an email, “I prepare the dossiers to prove the heroic virtues, martyrdom, or miracles of our candidate saints and blesseds; these dossiers ranging from 500 to 1,000 pages or more are evaluated by the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints in various steps, and finally it is the pope who decides.”
DeJak learned of Ciszek in high school in his senior year.
“I went to St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland, and an assignment was given to choose a book from a group of books for a theology class,” DeJak said. “I was rifling through the books and not much caught my eye except for ‘He Leadeth Me.’ I still have the dog-eared copy of it. I picked up and read the back of the book and something really attracted me from the start in terms of here was a tough guy who had weathered the storms of persecutions. It was more of the heroic that really attracted me. I read the book and loved it. I gleaned spiritual messages and benefits from reading it. At my high school level, I saw him as a priest’s priest and a man’s man.”
DeJak’s interest in Ciszek continued as he studied at Loyola University, which is a Jesuit school, and learned that his cause for canonization had begun about five years before entering the university.
DeJak obtained prayer cards and other items from the Father Walter Ciszek Prayer League, which was originally based near Sugarloaf, that increased his devotion.
DeJak and his wife, Ann, were married in 1998 and their first child, Tommy, was born about six weeks premature with severe mental and physical disabilities. Tommy’s condition prompted the nurse to ask about baptizing him, which DeJak did, and was taken by medical helicopter to a larger hospital and placed in an neonatal intensive care unit.
“Within 45 minutes of his birth, Annie and I had a good cry and said we needed to choose a main intercessor and Father Walter was our guy from the first,” DeJak said. “This caused us to probe deeper and have deeper devotion.”
For the next five months, Tommy was in hospitals, and during that time DeJak decided to make a pilgrimage to Shenandoah in 1999 and visited with Sister Albertine, who managed the Ciszek Center.
“In my mind, Father Walter has done his job,” he said. “The boy is alive. He will be our lifelong companion. Father Walter’s spiritual message about God’s will being in front of you each and every day is not just something that is out there. It is the people, places and things God places before you.”
DeJak has made many trips to Shenandoah for a “spiritual shot in the arm,” including the annual Father Walter Ciszek Day in October and to work with Lindeijer in his research.
“There is a certain familiarity even though none of my family is from the Shenandoah area,” DeJak said. “My grandpa was a coal miner in Pennsylvania toward the Johnstown area, so I have some Pennsylvania roots on my mom’s side of the family. I’m Slovenian and my wife is Polish, so I always say, ‛same food, different name.’ ”
There is a personal connection for DeJak with Ciszek, especially having been Jesuit-trained and becoming friends with Flaherty.
“I can say that beyond any other saint, and I know he’s not canonized yet, that I’ve been closer to Father Walter than anyone else,” he said. “I and my family by extension really do feel that he has accompanied us, especially since the beginning of my life with my wife. It didn’t take long before he came into the picture in a very real way with Tommy. By rereading a paragraph or two from ‘He Leadeth Me,’ and even in ‘With God in Russia,’ you can’t help but get spiritual sustenance and see God’s providential work. He’s been a dear friend, and I think that the best way to describe it, even though I met him for the first time 10 years after his death.”
DeJak plans to attend the Ciszek Day Mass in October and will sign books after Mass in the St. Casimir Church hall. Royalties from book sales will be donated to the prayer league, which supports the canonization cause.