WALTER J. CISZEK, S.J. (1904-1984), spent twenty-three years in the Soviet Gulag and is now being considered for canonization in the Roman Catholic Church.

A deeply personal story of one man's spiritual odyssey and the unflagging faith which enabled him to survive the ordeal that wrenched his body and spirit to near collapse.

Captured by a Russian army during World War II and convicted of being a "Vatican spy," Jesuit Father Walter J. Ciszek spent some 23 agonizing years in Soviet prisons and the labor camps of Siberia. He here recalls how it was only through an utter reliance on God's will that he managed to endure. He tells of the courage he found in prayer-a courage that eased the loneliness, the pain, the frustration, the anguish, the fears, the despair. For, as Ciszek relates, the solace of spiritual contemplation gave him an inner serenity upon which he was able to draw amidst the "arrogance of evil" that surrounded him. Learning to accept even the inhuman work of toiling in the infamous Siberian salt mines as a labor pleasing to God, he was able to turn the adverse forces of circumstance into a source of positive value and a means of drawing closer to the compassionate and never-forsaking Divine Spirit.

He Leadeth Me is a book to inspire all Christians to greater faith and trust in God-even in their darkest hour. For, as the author asks, "What can ultimately trouble the soul that accepts every moment of every day as a gift from the hands of God and strives always to do his will?"