3rd Sunday of Advent 2023

Photo by John P. Walsh

From Alfred Delp, S.J., “Meditation for the Third Sunday of Advent Written in Tegel Prison, Berlin, December 1944” (adapted), Advent of the Heart, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2006:

“Mankind is challenged again to stand and deliver. Only man does not merely exchange one set of chains for another – God’s calls are always creative. They increase the very reality within us that is called upon – precisely because of their realness and authenticity…Freedom is the breath of life. We sit in musty bomb cellars and cramped prisons and groan under the bursting and destructive blows of fate. We should finally stop giving everything a false glamour and unrealistic value and begin to bear it for what it is – unredeemed life. As soon as we do this, the jangling of chains and the trembling of nerves and the faintness of heart transform themselves into a small prayer – “Drop down, dew…” We should much more definitively unite our concrete destiny with those kind of connections and call upon God’s redeeming freedom. Then the narrowness widens, our lungs breathe in fresh air again, and the horizon has promises again. Existence still weeps and mourns, but already a soft, joyous melody of longing and knowledge is ringing through the mourners’ broken voices. With this knowledge and attitude humanity releases itself from the lonely relationship to things and circumstances. A person finds wholesomeness and healing – not the goal-oriented, cool distance of calculation, mechanization, and organization. It is rather that higher level of freedom, the perspective given to someone looking from the heights to what lies below. The voice of such a person is not so quickly silenced!”

“The conditions for true joy have nothing to do with conditions of our exterior life but consist of humanity’s interior frame of mind and competence, which make it possible now and again for the person to sense, even in adverse circumstances, what life is really about…And the first answer is found in the figure of John the Baptist who personifies Advent. Humanity must be brought to an absolute clarity about himself and honestly before himself and others. He must come down from all the pedestals of arrogance onto which he always climbs…From the high-horses of vanity and self-deception that, for a time, let themselves be trotted out so proudly. Those horses though finally throw off their “master” in the wilderness…Two criteria identify whether we are following an authentic impulse or not…Both are found once again in John the Baptist. The first is service – human honesty requires a person to see himself as a servant and perceive his reality as mission and an assignment…The second criterion keeps us on track- annunciation, which calls us to praise of God. An extended personal effort is required to keep giving oneself the impulse to rise above, move away from self. But at the same time this is how a human being attains the necessary openness in which he or she must continue if sincerely wanting to strive toward the great realities God has prepared for him or her.” 

2nd Sunday of Advent 2023

Photo by John P. Walsh

From Alfred Delp S.J., Prison Writings, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York, 2004:

“So this Sunday we must again fold our hands and kneel humbly before God in order that his salvation may be active in us and that we may be ready to call upon him and be moved by his presence. The arrogance so typical of modern men and women is deflated here. At the same time, the icy loneliness and helplessness into which we are frozen melts under the divine warmth that fills and blesses us …If we are terrified by a dawning realization of our true condition, that terror is completely calmed by the certain knowledge that God is on the way and actually approaching. Our fate, no matter how much it may be entwined with the inescapable logic of circumstance, is still nothing more than the way to God, the way God has chosen for the ultimate consummation of his purpose, for his permanent ends. Light your candles – such candles as you possess – for they are the appropriate symbol for all that must happen in Advent if we are to live.”

First Sunday of Advent 2023

Photo by John P. Walsh

“I see this year’s Advent (December 1944 in Berlin’s Tegel Prison) with an intensity and discomposure like never before….Along with these thoughts comes the memory of an angel that a good person gave me for Advent in 1942. It held a banner: ‘Rejoice, for the Lord is near.’ 

“A war bomb destroyed the angel as well as that good person although I often sense that she continues to do angel-services for me. It is the knowledge of the quiet angels of annunciation, who speak their message of blessing into the distress of our world situation and scatter their blessing’s seeds which begin to grow in the middle of the night which informs and encourages us of the truth of a situation. 

“These angels of Advent are not loud angels of public jubilation and fulfillment but, silent and unnoticed, they come into private and shabby rooms and appear before our hearts as they did long ago. Silently they bring the questions of God and proclaim to us the miracles of God, with whom nothing is impossible. 

“Advent is a time of refuge because it has received a message – and so to believe in God’s auspicious seeds that the angels offer an open heart are the first things we must do with our lives. The next is to go through the days as announcing messengers ourselves. We wait in faith for the abundance of the coming harvest – not because we trust the earth or the stars or our own good sense and courage – but only because we have perceived God’s messages and know about His herald angels – and even have ourselves encountered one.”

From Alfred Delp, S.J., “Figures of Advent,” Advent of the Heart, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2006 (adapted)

Words of Hope - Fr. Alfred Delp S.J. - February 2, 1945

Alfred Delp SJ was hanged Feb 2 1945 for his part in an anti-Nazi group planning a new Christian order after the defeat of Hitler. 

“If thru one man’s life there is a little more love and kindness, a little more light and truth in the world, he will not have lived in vain.”

“The conditions of happiness have nothing whatever to do with outward existence. They are exclusively dependent on man’s inner attitude and steadfastness which enable him, even in the most trying circumstances, to form at least a notion of what life is about.”

his own life flows forth from the mystery of God

Alfred Delp painted in 1939 by his brother-in-law Fritz Kern, who was killed in Crimea in 1941. 

"God is personally here in our midst. ... This is the hidden and holy burden of all the experiences we undergo … 

And man will discover that he is living God's life within himself, in his very heart's core, 

proving the truth of the words of great and intuitive men like Eckhart, St. Augustine and the rest.   

He will arrive at a state of perception in which he realizes that the Supreme Being actually resides within him.   

He will find himself and regain faith in his own dignity, his mission and his purpose in life precisely to the extent that he grasps the idea of his own life flowing forth within him from the mystery of God … 

"Only when a man arrives at that state of mastery and freedom can he breathe freely.   

The world and life itself then owe him nothing for he lives with every fibre of his being… " (pp. 39-40)

- Fr. Alfred Delp SJ, “The Prison Meditations of Father Alfred Delp”, 1963 Herder and Herder New York
See also: The Prison Meditations of Father Delp

Christmas is the mystery of contact with God

"Christmas is the mystery of contact with God, fundamentally and actually." (p. 72)

- Fr. Alfred Delp SJ, “The Prison Meditations of Father Alfred Delp”, 1963 Herder and Herder New York
See also: The Prison Meditations of Father Delp

the silver threads of God's mystery; let us trust in life

Rainbow Shells Around an Aging Star. The Egg Nebula, located 3,000 light-years away, offers astronomers a special look at the normally invisible dust shells swaddling an older star. These dust layers, extending over one-tenth of a light-year from the star, have an onionskin structure that forms concentric rings around the star. 

NASA / ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team STScI / AURA 

from the 2019 NASA Advent Calendar

"Whoever is true to life, 

however hard and barren it may be, 

will discover in himself 

fountains of very real refreshment.   

The world will give him more than he ever imagined possible.   

The silver threads of God's mystery 

will begin to sparkle visibly in everything round him 

and there will be a song in his heart.   

His burdens will turn to blessings 

because he recognizes them as coming from God 

and welcomes them as such. … 

"Let us trust in life because this night will pass and a new day will dawn. 

Let us trust in life because we do not have to live through it alone.   

God is with us."  ((p. 69)

- Fr. Alfred Delp SJ, “The Prison Meditations of Father Alfred Delp”, 1963 Herder and Herder New York
See also: The Prison Meditations of Father Delp

acute awareness of shrouded mystery

Alfred Delp S.J. 

" … On the fourth Sunday in Advent 

the acute awareness of shrouded mystery 

is deepening for the final hour of darkness 

that heralds the dawn.   

There is an intense awareness of captivity, 

of crippling disability 

and despair, 

but it is already shot through 

with a premonition of the divine grace -- 

the premonition that will soon become certainty." (p. 51)

- Fr. Alfred Delp SJ, “The Prison Meditations of Father Alfred Delp”, 1963 Herder and Herder New York
See also: The Prison Meditations of Father Delp

the Godless man

Fr. Alfred Delp SJ 

"A Godless life is one delivered up to a vast army of kill-joys.   

"When man loses touch with the eternal truths he gets submerged in the weeds that sprout all over the garden of his life. They are senseless trivialities that assume an air of real importance. Though they pretend to have a purpose they are quite futile, and merely add obscurity and confusion to a life which is gradually engulfed in a sort of eternal twilight without light or direction. … 

"Hunted and driven, and bewitched he is no longer master of his own fate, no longer a free man.   

"It is hard enough to meet the ordinary hazards incidental to every existence; but the Godless man has no defenses and is delivered up, bound and disarmed. Left to cope with them in this defenseless fashion he falls back on the excuse that fate is against him and the world is all wrong.    

"He is a failure and it takes very little to keep him bogged down in depression and despair. The world becomes a cheerless place, not worth living in, although there seems to be no way out of it.   

"Or, on the other hand, he may persuade himself that a flippant attitude is the right one to adopt, and he seeks a cheap way out of his troubles by various forms of escapism.  The great illusion begins, the age of noise and mass mentality and organized animation - 'circuses' - for crowds.    

"Till at last the earth begins to quake and underground rumblings, which have been more or less effectively drowned by the surface uproar, imperatively assert themselves.   

"Thunder crashes proclaiming the day of judgement." (pp. 37-38)

- Fr. Alfred Delp SJ, “The Prison Meditations of Father Alfred Delp”, 1963 Herder and Herder New York
See also: The Prison Meditations of Father Delp

you have no key

Meat hooks from which Fr. Delp was hung on February 2, 1945

"Sooner or later we all make the discovery that human beings are subject to prohibitions and restraints that are even harsher, more irksome and more inexorable than the limitations of nature. 

 The liturgy calls this imprisonment -- a word we often use very glibly, for only those who have actually suffered it can have any idea of the effect it has on one's inner nature.   

The man who has had a taste of prison life knows what it means to be shut up in a narrow cell, his wrists fettered, his mind occupied with a thousand depressing thoughts as he visualizes the flag of freedom drooping forgotten in some obscure corner.  Again and again his hopes rise only to fall back into despair when the steps of the warder approach or the key grates harshly in the lock.  Then dreams fade into reality and it all seems hopeless.   

Again and again you come back to the same point -- you have no key, and even if you had there is no keyhole on the inside of a prison door.  And the window is barred and it is so high up you can't even look out.  Unless someone from the outside comes to set you free there can be no end to your misery -- all the will power in the world makes no difference.  The facts clamor for recognition."  (pp. 45-46)

- Fr. Alfred Delp SJ, “The Prison Meditations of Father Alfred Delp”, 1963 Herder and Herder New York
See also: The Prison Meditations of Father Delp

as one of us

Fr. Alfred Delp SJ, sailing

"There has always been a lot of misunderstanding about the feast of the nativity. Superficial familiarity, sentimental crib-making and so on have to some extent distorted our view of the stupendous event the feast commemorates … 

"To be honest I too long to be able to breathe again, to be relieved of my troubles … The question that applies to the whole world applies to me personally and concretely on this feast of the Nativity.  Is there anything different about celebrating Mass here in this narrow cell where prayers are said and tears are shed and God is known, believed in and called upon? At stated hours the key grates in the lock and my wrists are put back into handcuffs; at stated hours they are taken off -- that goes on day after day, monotonously, without variation. Where does the breathing again which God makes possible come in? And the waiting and waiting for relief -- how long? And to what end? … 

"We ought to remember we are approaching the feast of God-made-man, not of man rendered divine. The divine mystery takes place on earth and follows the natural course of earthly events. As the epistle so emphatically states:  according to the flesh - from the seed of David. It cannot be interpreted any other way,  It is an indisputable but incomprehensible fact that God enters our homes, our existence, not only like us but actually as one of us. That is the unfathomable mystery.  From this point on the Son is absorbed by history, his fate becomes part of history and history's fate is his fate. In the darkest cells and the loneliest prisons we can meet hims; he is continually on the high roads and in the lanes." (p. 63)

- Fr. Alfred Delp SJ, “The Prison Meditations of Father Alfred Delp”, 1963 Herder and Herder New York

See also: The Prison Meditations of Father Delp

wilderness: abandonment to the silence of God

Fr. Alfred Delp SJ

"The wilderness has a necessary function in life.  'Abandonment' one of my friends called it and the word is very apt.  Abandonment to wind and weather and day and night and all the intervening hours.  And abandonment to the silence of God, the greatest abandonment of all.  The virtue that thrives most on it -- patience -- is the most necessary of all virtues that spring from the heart -- and the Spirit. 

"Please don't think I am trying to write an ode to the wilderness.  Anyone who has ever had to encounter and withstand a wilderness must have a healthy respect for it -- and must speak of it with the reserve that prompts a man to hide his wounds and his weaknesses.  It is a great place for thinking things out, for recognizing facts, for getting new light on problems and for reaching decisions.  A heavy load brings the ship low in the water but it also keeps her steady.  The wilderness represents the law of endurance, the firmness that makes a man.  It is the quiet corner reserved for tears, prayers for help, humiliations, terror.  But it is part of life and to try to avoid it only postpones the trial."

- Fr. Alfred Delp SJ, “The Prison Meditations of Father Alfred Delp”, p.97. 1963 Herder and Herder New York
See also: The Prison Meditations of Father Delp

Salus Populi Romani

icon of Salus Populi Romani in the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica in Rome. 

Recounted by pious tradition to have been painted by St. Luke the Evangelist.

"That God should have condescended to become a human mother's son;  that one woman whose womb was sanctified as the holy temple and tabernacle of the living God should have been permitted to walk the earth -- these wonders make up the sum total of the earth's actual purpose and they are the fulfillment of all its expectations." (pp. 25-26)

- Fr. Alfred Delp SJ, “The Prison Meditations of Father Alfred Delp”, 1963 Herder and Herder New York
See also: The Prison Meditations of Father Delp

The world is greater than the burden it bears.

"The Great Silence", from Neither Use Nor Ornament

"The world is greater than the burden it bears, and life is more than the sum total of its grey days.  The golden threads of reality are already shining through; if we look we can see them everywhere.  Let us never forget this; we must be our own comforters. … 

"The air still vibrates with the noise of violence and destruction.  But silently the eternal values are gathering on the horizon.  They are like the first pale rays of light as the promise of radiant fulfillment creeps upward accompanied by the first tentative notes of jubilation.  It is not yet a full chorus but only an indication, a hint, far away.  But it is drawing nearer."  (p. 27)

- Fr. Alfred Delp SJ, “The Prison Meditations of Father Alfred Delp”, 1963 Herder and Herder New York
See also: The Prison Meditations of Father Delp

listen, keep watch

Fr. Alfred Delp S.J.

" … We have to listen, to keep watch, to let our hearts quicken under the impulse of the indwelling Spirit.  Only in this quiescent state can the true blessing of Advent be experienced and then we shall also recognize it in other ways.  Once awakened to an inner awareness we are constantly surprised by symbols bearing the Advent message, figures of tried and proved personalities that bring out in a most forceful way the inner meaning of the feast and emphasize its blessing. 

"I am thinking of three in particular -- the man crying in the wilderness, the herald angel, and our blessed Lady."

- Fr. Alfred Delp SJ, “The Prison Meditations of Father Alfred Delp”, p.22. 1963 Herder and Herder New York

See also: The Prison Meditations of Father Delp

Christmas

"Christmas is the mystery of contact with God, fundamentally and actually." (p. 72)

- Fr. Alfred Delp SJ, “The Prison Meditations of Father Alfred Delp”, 1963 Herder and Herder New York
See also: The Prison Meditations of Father Delp

the silver threads of God's mystery

"Whoever is true to life, however hard and barren it may be, will discover in himself fountains of very real refreshment.  The world will give him more than he ever imagined possible.  the silver threads of God's mystery will begin to sparkle visibly in everything round him and there will be a song in his heart.  His burdens will turn to blessings because he recognizes them as coming from God and welcomes them as such. … 

"Let us trust in life because this night will pass and a new day will dawn  Let us trust in life because we do not have to live through it alone.  God is with us."  ((p. 69)

- Fr. Alfred Delp SJ, “The Prison Meditations of Father Alfred Delp”, 1963 Herder and Herder New York
See also: The Prison Meditations of Father Delp

the unfathomable mystery

"There has always been a lot of misunderstanding about the feast of the nativity.  Superficial familiarity, sentimental crib-making and so on have to some extent distorted our view of the stupendous event the feast commemorates … 

"To be honest I too long to be able to breathe again, to be relieved of my troubles … The question that applies to the whole world applies to me personally and concretely on this feast of the nativity.  Is there anything different about celebrating Mass here in this narrow cell where prayers are said and tears are shed and God is known, believed in and called upon?  At stated hours the key grates in the lock and my wrists are put back into handcuffs; at stated hours they are taken off -- that goes on day after day, monotonously, without variation.  Where does the breathing again which God makes possible come in?  And the waiting and waiting for relief -- how long?  And to what end? … 

"We ought to remember we are approaching the feast of God-made-man, not of man rendered divine.  The divine mystery takes place on earth and follows the natural course of earthly events.  As the epistle so emphatically states:  according to the flesh - from the seed of David.  It cannot be interpreted any other way,  It is an indisputable but incomprehensible fact that God enters our homes, our existence, not only like us but actually as one of us.  That is the unfathomable mystery.  From this point on the Son is absorbed by history, his fate becomes part of history and history's fate is his fate.  In the darkest cells and the loneliest prisons we can meet hims; he is continually on the high roads and in the lanes." (p. 63)

- Fr. Alfred Delp SJ, “The Prison Meditations of Father Alfred Delp”, 1963 Herder and Herder New York

See also: The Prison Meditations of Father Delp

God is day and night

"God is day and night, bondage and freedom, prison cell and the whole world." (p. 59)

- Fr. Alfred Delp SJ, “The Prison Meditations of Father Alfred Delp”, 1963 Herder and Herder New York
See also: The Prison Meditations of Father Delp

imprisonment

"Sooner or later we all make the discovery that human beings are subject to prohibitions and restraints that are even harsher, more irksome and more inexorable than the limitations of nature.  The liturgy calls this imprisonment -- a word we often use very glibly, for only those who have actually suffered it can have any idea of the effect it has on one's inner nature.  The man who has had a taste of prison life knows what it means to be shut up in a narrow cell, his wrists fettered, his mind occupied with a thousand depressing thoughts as he visualizes the flag of freedom drooping forgotten in some obscure corner.  Again and again his hopes rise only to fall back into despair when the steps of the warder approach or the key grates harshly in the lock.  Then dreams fade into reality and it all seems hopeless.  Again and again you come back to the same point -- you have no key, and even if you had there is no keyhole on the inside of a prison door.  And the window is barred and it is so high up you can't even look out.  Unless someone from the outside comes to set you free there can be no end to your misery -- all the will power in the world makes no difference.  The facts clamor for recognition."  (pp. 45-46)

- Fr. Alfred Delp SJ, “The Prison Meditations of Father Alfred Delp”, 1963 Herder and Herder New York
See also: The Prison Meditations of Father Delp