In his speech today, Joe Biden quotes Jesuit Alfred Delp from his advent meditations. Didn’t mention that Delp wrote this as he awaited execution for his part in an anti-Nazi study circle.
Conversation
In a dark cell and held in chains, Delp passed his time in the Advent season of 1944 writing a series of meditations. Set not only against the darkness of war, but his own impending death, they offer a contrast to the pious sentimentality often evoked by “the holiday season.”
For Delp the promise of Christmas, the paradoxical entry of God’s love into the dark wilderness of history, is literally a matter of life and death. “The fate of mankind, my own fate, the verdict awaiting me, the significance of the feast, can all be summed up in the sentence:
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“surrender thyself to God and thou shalt find thyself again. Others have you in their power now; they torture and frighten you, hound you from pillar to post. But the inner law of freedom sings that no death can kill us; life is eternal.” He was hanged 2/2/1945
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