The Shaking Reality of Advent

[Bruderhof News]

Check out this article at Bruderhof.com:
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The Shaking Reality of Advent -
by Alfred Delp

Why has God placed us in such a time? Why does he keep us in this chaos? Condemned
as a traitor for his opposition to Hitler, Alfred Delp, a Jesuit priest, wrote
this piece in a Nazi prison shortly before he was hanged in 1945.

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http://www.bruderhof.com/articles/RealityofAdvent.htm
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[Paul Speed]

Of no less value at this time than in his - we will always need to look at the world around us, love it with His love, and rely on Him, not it, for everything. It is a constant encounter with the One who is willing to be encountered.

Responding to http://www.bruderhof.com/articles/RealityofAdvent.htm

[Lettie]

Someone should send this to President Bush: "Woe to an age when the voices of those who cry in the wilderness have fallen silent, outshouted by the noise of the day or outlawed or swallowed up in the intoxication of progress, or growing smothered and fainter for fear and cowardice. The devastation will soon be so terrifying and universal that the word "wilderness" will again strike our hearts and minds. I think we know that."

Responding to http://www.bruderhof.com/articles/RealityofAdvent.htm

[Karen Branan]

It is as true now as it was then.

Responding to http://www.bruderhof.com/articles/RealityofAdvent.htm

[Carl Holmes]

To only live every day of our life as if it was a day of Advent. What a grand adventure that would be. God could reveal himself evermore in wonderful, powerful ways. My prayer is that we as a people will be shaken from our slumber, and that we will be faced with what is at the core of our being. Then we can begin to build a Church of active believers.

Responding to http://www.bruderhof.com/articles/RealityofAdvent.htm

[Rita]

Very telling for our time and place in history.

Responding to http://www.bruderhof.com/articles/RealityofAdvent.htm

[Claire]

I assume that Alfred is writing from a prison cell or a cell of his own making. I am presently attending advent services with a Bible study at my church and this writing of Alfreds is very apropos for this Wednesday. I never gave much thought to John the Baptist at this time of year, yet he was the one preparing for the coming of the Lord Jesus. He preached repentance before baptism. Thanks for the article. I look forward to the coming of the Christ Child.

Responding to http://www.bruderhof.com/articles/RealityofAdvent.htm

[Candace Miller]

I am sending this article to a close friend of mine who has been incarcerated for his involvement in a double murder since 1986. We have been corresponding and exchanging thoughts for a year now, I have been to see him perhaps half a dozen times and have grown to care deeply for him. He confided in me in his last letter that he had sat with another inmate who was contemplating suicide, he said that he felt helpless that there was nothing he could "do" for this person. In the meantime, it seems that yet another inmate attempted suicide and in order to escape the punishment for "self-mutilation," snitched on the first inmate, a perversion of justice if ever there were one. In the course of his imprisonment, Jens has had a genuine conversion, out of which have begun to flow an astonishing number of articles and even, to date, two published books....If there is ever a soul whose world has been shaken in the sense in which Ft. Delp means it, it is this young man. What remains cannot be shaken, namely, his tender and compassionate, listening heart. He is himself a beacon of light to many in his prison, not to mention to scores of others who have read his books and responded to his call to action. It is worth noting that what transpires behind prison walls cannot usually tolerate the light of day, yet there is a way the Holy Spirit moves in such places. The messages issuing from the belly of the beast give incomparable hope, speaking as they do out of the unseen realm, wrung from the depths of the messenger, and cloven out of his substance. What remains surely cannot be shaken......

Responding to http://www.bruderhof.com/articles/RealityofAdvent.htm