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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20231215
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DTSTAMP:20260427T062402
CREATED:20231210T114441Z
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UID:11385-1702598400-1702684799@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading
DESCRIPTION:CHRIST IS WITH US \nFrom “Love Letters from Cell 92” \n– The correspondence between \nDietrich Bonhoeffer and his fiancé Maria von Wedemeyer6 \n◊◊◊ \n[Tegel] 13 December\, 1943 \nWithout abandoning all hope that things may yet take a turn for the better \njust in time\, I must now write you a Christmas letter. Be brave for my sake\, dearest \nMaria\, even if this letter is your only token of my love this Christmas-tide. We shall \nboth experience a few dark hours – why should we disguise that from each other? \nWe shall ponder the incomprehensibility of our lot and be assailed by the question \nof why\, over and above the darkness already enshrouding humanity\, we should be \nsubjected to the bitter anguish of a separation whose purpose we fail to \nunderstand. How hard it is\, inwardly to accept what defies our understanding; \nhow great is the temptation to feel ourselves at the mercy of blind chance; how \nsinister the way in which mistrust and resentment steal into our hearts at such \ntimes; and how readily we fall prey to the childish notion that the course of our \nlives reposes in human hands! \nAnd then\, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that \nwe can scarcely withstand it\, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our \nideas are wrong\, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light \nbecause it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault\, that is all. God is in the manger\, \nwealth in poverty\, light in darkness\, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us; \nwhatever men may do to us\, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed \nas love and rules the world and our lives. We must learn to say: “I know how to be \nabased and I know how to abound; in any and all circumstances I have learned the \nsecret of facing plenty and hunger\, abundance and want. I can do all things in him \nwho strengthens me” \n– and this Christmas\, in particular\, can help us to do so. What \nis meant here is not stoical resistance to all extraneous occurrences\, but true \nendurance and true rejoicing in the knowledge that Christ is with us. \nDearest Maria\, let us celebrate Christmas in that way. Be as happy with the \nothers as a person can only be at Christmas-time. Don’t entertain any awful \nimaginings of me in my cell\, but remember that Christ\, too\, frequents prisons\, and \nthat he will not pass me by. Besides\, I hope to find myself a good book for \nChristmas and read it in peace. May you do likewise. A little oblivion is \npermissible in view of everything else. First one has and finally one is entitled to \nforget it; but the reverse order would be mistaken and unproductive. Dearest \nMaria\, let’s not talk of what we both feel; we know it\, and every word merely makes \nthe heart heavier. Above all\, let us be careful not to feel sorry for ourselves; to do \nso would truly be a blasphemy on God\, who means us well. For all our difficulties\, \nlet us say\, with Isaiah: “Do not destroy it\, for there is a blessing in it” \n– even in this Christmas \n  \n6 Love Letters From Cell 92 – The Correspondence between Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Maria von Wedemeyer. Ed. Ruth-Alice von \nBismarck and Ulrich Kabitz. Trans. John Brownjohn. Nashville: Abingdon Press\, 1995. 133-135.13 \n  \n 
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-140/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
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