Vigils Reading

CHRIST IS WITH US

From “Love Letters from Cell 92”

– The correspondence between

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his fiancé Maria von Wedemeyer6

◊◊◊

[Tegel] 13 December, 1943

Without abandoning all hope that things may yet take a turn for the better

just in time, I must now write you a Christmas letter. Be brave for my sake, dearest

Maria, even if this letter is your only token of my love this Christmas-tide. We shall

both experience a few dark hours – why should we disguise that from each other?

We shall ponder the incomprehensibility of our lot and be assailed by the question

of why, over and above the darkness already enshrouding humanity, we should be

subjected to the bitter anguish of a separation whose purpose we fail to

understand. How hard it is, inwardly to accept what defies our understanding;

how great is the temptation to feel ourselves at the mercy of blind chance; how

sinister the way in which mistrust and resentment steal into our hearts at such

times; and how readily we fall prey to the childish notion that the course of our

lives reposes in human hands!

And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that

we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our

ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light

because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in the manger,

wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us;

whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed

as love and rules the world and our lives. We must learn to say: “I know how to be

abased and I know how to abound; in any and all circumstances I have learned the

secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and want. I can do all things in him

who strengthens me”

– and this Christmas, in particular, can help us to do so. What

is meant here is not stoical resistance to all extraneous occurrences, but true

endurance and true rejoicing in the knowledge that Christ is with us.

Dearest Maria, let us celebrate Christmas in that way. Be as happy with the

others as a person can only be at Christmas-time. Don’t entertain any awful

imaginings of me in my cell, but remember that Christ, too, frequents prisons, and

that he will not pass me by. Besides, I hope to find myself a good book for

Christmas and read it in peace. May you do likewise. A little oblivion is

permissible in view of everything else. First one has and finally one is entitled to

forget it; but the reverse order would be mistaken and unproductive. Dearest

Maria, let’s not talk of what we both feel; we know it, and every word merely makes

the heart heavier. Above all, let us be careful not to feel sorry for ourselves; to do

so would truly be a blasphemy on God, who means us well. For all our difficulties,

let us say, with Isaiah: “Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it”

– even in this Christmas

6 Love Letters From Cell 92 – The Correspondence between Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Maria von Wedemeyer. Ed. Ruth-Alice von

Bismarck and Ulrich Kabitz. Trans. John Brownjohn. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995. 133-135.13