Between heaven and earth

Merry Christmas to everyone!

During these past three weeks of Advent, I have been reading and reflecting on sermons written by Father Alfred Delp, a German Jesuit priest executed by the Nazis by hanging on February 2, 1945 just four months before the Allies invaded Europe to begin the end of World War Two. The sermons were preached by Father Delp on the Sundays of Advent from 1941 through 1944. He was active in the resistance movement to Nazi power and assisted Jewish and other political refugees to escape Germany during these years. As a result Delp was arrested on July 28, 1944.

He had been scheduled to profess his final vows as a Jesuit on August 15. In prison he was tortured. He was pressured to renounce the Jesuits. He was offered freedom if he would change his allegiance in favor of the Nazis. A sympathetic prison guard smuggled him bread and wine so he could celebrate Mass. Women from the resistance movement were able to do laundry for him. As a prisoner he was handcuffed 24 hours a day, his cell was brightly lit all 24 hours, yet he managed to write on small pieces of paper smuggled to him.

Father Delp observed in 1942 that “the meaning of our Christmas holy days is not primarily our external holiday celebration, but that particular mysteries of God happen to us, and that we respond.” He is aware that in our liturgical rites and rituals are attempts “to indicate something that reaches much deeper and must be taken much more seriously.” He was very aware that the Nazis were doing everything in their power to erase any influence of religion not only in public life, but also in private life.

At Christmas, he says, we recall an historical event. But he also preached that “something happens between Heaven and earth that passes all understanding,” something which lasts for all time. As a result, each of our individual lives is challenged. We have received a message that must be answered. Each of us individually and personally needs to decide how to respond to that message.

What is this message? God has entered into a relationship with us. Indeed, Delp describes it as a marriage covenant. God enters into this covenant with each one of us. “God has spoken his ultimate Word to the world.” If we take God seriously – and therein lies the question – this has to mean something to us. We are “the substance of a divine commitment to man.” And we live not because of anything we do, but because of God’s grace. But do we take God seriously?

Or – in our own time – do we listen more to the braggadocio we hear from politicians, from movie stars, from athletes, from power brokers on Wall Street, from criminals, from men who abuse women, etc., etc., etc.? It is because of God’s commitment to us Delp writes, that “we know our intrinsic dignity.” We “know that we are raised up above and beyond all else, because we mean so much to God.”

So many do not believe this. So many do not realize, understand, or even know that they mean so much to God. What are we asked to do? Delp writes that we are to renounce godlessness. We are to live moral, upright, and pious lives in this world. Delp calls godlessness “a calumniation of the divine life.” We are asked to recognize that our innermost purpose in life is to find our way home to God – to seek God for God’s sake. Thus, we are always people on the way. We are always waiting for God. This makes us people of loneliness. God wants us as His people.

Delp observed that in Germany in his day there was no Christmas life. Just godlessness. There was no Christmas life in the attitude of people. They were not finding their way to God. Is this happening to us in our own day? If we no longer depend on God’s mercy, the world becomes unmerciful. If the world is unmerciful, then tragedies such as Newtown occur. The world no longer awaits the great revelation of the Lord. There is neither peace nor security.

Despite the reality of World War Two in Germany, Father Delp writes hopefully. We can still personally know the content and meaning of this feast. We still petition the Lord. We live in the knowledge that He redeems us through this mystery. “We are rich and capable enough through God’s comfort to give mankind the comfort that it needs so much.” We can be the “great comforters, the great knowers, the great blessed ones who know what it means to be consoled by God.”

 That is what this feast and this ritual can do for us – console us so that we may console others.