Captured by the Russian army during World War II and convicted of being a "Vatican spy", American 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 frustrations, 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 amid the "arrogance of evil" that surrounded him. Learning to accept even the inhuman work of toiling in the infamous Siberian gulags 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.

WALTER J. CISZEK, S.J. (1904-1984), was a Polish-American Jesuit priest known for his missionary work in the Soviet Union during and after World War II. He was eventually arrested by the Soviets as a spy and spent fifteen years in the Gulag. He was released and returned to the United States in 1963, after which he wrote two books, including the memoir With God in Russia, and served as a spiritual director. Since 1990, Ciszek has been under investigation by the Roman Catholic Church for anonization. His current title is Servant of God.