December 11, 2024 • 64 mins
In this episode of The Heart of Fiat Crucified Love, Catholic missionary and evangelist, Dr. Mary Kloska speaks about the life and reflections of Fr. Alfred Delp, SJ -a German Jesuit who was martyred by the Nazi's for his faith. While awaiting execution during Advent 1944, Fr. Delp wrote little reflections on scraps of paper and smuggled them out of the prison in his wash. These reflections of his last Advent on earth, which prepared him not only for the coming of Christ at Christmas, but also eternally, are a powerful testament to his personal faith, hope and love.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to WCAT radio, your home for authentic Catholic programming.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
To the Heart of Fiat crucified Love. This week we
are going to speak a little bit about this holy
priest who was martyred by the Nazis. He was a
German Jesuit and his name is Father Alfred delp and
he wrote beautiful meditations on Advent.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I read them a few years.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Ago, and this morning I was inspired to pull them
out again and just share with you some of his
meditations from the Advent directly preceding his execution for being
a Catholic priest. And he has really profound insights, because
when you're at the point of giving your life for
(00:57):
Christ and facing death, you see things with the clarity
that otherwise you might not see.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
So I wanted to just share some.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Of his writings from that, particularly from that last Advent
in nineteen forty four before he was killed, and help
you to apply that somewhat to your own life. So
we start with a prayer and we'll do Oh, come
oncoming Daniel, in the name of the Father and the
(01:29):
Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen, Come, Holy Spirit, kill
the hearts of your faithful enkindle in us the fire
of your love. Send forth your spirit, and we will
be recreated, And.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
We ask you, blessed Mother, to open up your immaculate
heart and to pour out upon us those gifts of
the Holy Spirit that you received as our spiritual mother.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
For us. We ask you to help us to prepare.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Not only our hearts and homes for the coming of
Christ at Christmas, but also in this long advent of life,
to prepare them for eternal life with Jesus in heaven.
And we ask this always through your intercession. Hail Mary,
full of grace.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
The Lord is with thee.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit
of thy womb. Jesus, Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray
for us sinners.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
And now at the hour of our death.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
Amen.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
Oh come, Oh Come, I.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Just sang it in the other room.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Oh come, o com me mad you wild run some
captain is trial that morns in lonely.
Speaker 6 (03:32):
Excited until the sun offca reach choice rechoice, be mad.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
New world shall come to the who with ray, Who
come the rod of choice, c.
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Free thine known from senst.
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Rey from taps.
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Of how I p.
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Posa and give them factory.
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The gra.
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Readjoice stree choice emails human.
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Shall come to the oh is ry oh come the
day spring for bunches our spear reads by.
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Thy mand.
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Thti disper gluey, clouds of night.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
And death start shadow of spo.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
To fly.
Speaker 6 (05:46):
Reacho streechoice evand you man, She'll come to thee owen.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Issraa O come boy of bad come.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
And and bie our head the hold.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
It safe the way badly.
Speaker 6 (06:30):
On hide the close up path to man, Sir read
choice street choice.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Be bad.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
You have.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
Shall come to the moment is try come o comferble.
Speaker 6 (07:10):
Of mind.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
To the tribes on si.
Speaker 6 (07:20):
Nice hide in the ancient timestay gave inclode and majy.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
And read choice street choice email new She'll come to the.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
Men a Lee Lujah.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
And beyond the age of needing perfection.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
I learned as a missionary that when you give God
what you have, sometimes he even allows things to be imperfect,
to grow your humility and your purity of love, and
then he bears greater fruits. So it's my fingers and
voice tripped through that. I kept thinking, well, don't take
yourself too seriously. I don't have time to play guitar
(08:38):
much these days, so we are going to talk about
Alfred depp Delp the Priest and Martyr. It's a beautiful book.
I do recommend you getting it, and you could really
gain a lot from that, even if it wasn't during advent, right,
but it's a beautiful way of making your advent a
(09:00):
little bit deeper. As you all know, I have a
great devotion to the infant crucified Christ and his sufferings
in the manger, his sufferings as a child.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
And looking at advent through the eyes.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Of this holy priest who suffered, you know, his last
advent in high security prison on his way to being killed.
It helps us to remember that Christ came and it
was beautiful and you know, the choirs of angels saying
and all of that, but there was a great suffering
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that followed him.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Because he was the redeemer of the world.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
He gave us the savior, and we hear Sinon and
the prophecy that he gives saying, you know, this child
is for the rise and the fall of many. One
that will be contradicted, right, one who would cause his
mother's heart to be pe here'd be of this beautiful
image behind us, of our lady. And Simeon said, you
(10:05):
yourself as sword shall peers. Sometimes I think we forget
in all the holiday bustle, right, and the magic of
this time of the year, and the excitement that the
gift of Christ to us and Bethlehem was a gift
of the little crucified Lord, and one that came with
(10:27):
concrete pain. And you know, I was a missionary for
many years, and I dreamed about being a missionary when
I was little, and I would have these images of
what it would be like.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
To live, for example, in Africa, right, and help with
the orphans, and to have that poor, you know, dirt floor,
and like, there's.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Something in me that's really attracted to entering into dire
poverty and serving people there. But your imagination can't really
quite take hold of a full picture and how difficult
it is to actually be that missionary, right, And so
you know, that cool looking dirt floor is hard, and
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it's hard to sleep at night, and you're coughing up
dirt that's you know, dust that's in your sinuses, and
it's cold at night, and even in Africa sometimes depending
on where, but it'll get real cold at night and
then really.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Hot during the day.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
That heat is something you can't get away from. There's
not you know, air conditioning. There's always that panic in
your heart that a snake that you saw autside is
going to get in your little hut, right because none
of them are as secure as our.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
House is here.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
And even living in South Texas, there are times where
you know snakes would come through the toilet system or
would somehow.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Get in the house. And those are you know, better
built houses.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
So think about when I was in Africa, you know,
some of those concrete sufferings, the hunger, and then once
you got offered food, not knowing where it came from,
would it make you sick?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Could you eat it?
Speaker 3 (12:05):
You know what?
Speaker 2 (12:05):
The ramifications would be that threat looming of.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Knowing that you are an American and you are a
Catholic or a Christian in an area where they tried
to kidnap and kill Americans and Catholics and Christians, and
the list goes on and on. Not being able to
sleep and no communication with the outside world, and you think.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
About the smell, just the smell sometimes.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Of the orphanages in these institutions in Russia, Like the
pictures of me with an orphan is beautiful, but the
smell something I'll never forget. So sometimes when we think
about something, you know, we kind of make it glorified
in our mind.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
And that allows us to do.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
That with Christmas, to think of the beautiful baby and
the manger Wright and Mary and Joseph and these wonderful images,
because our hearts need a rest our. Hearts have a
lot of suffering in this fallen world. It doesn't matter
what country you live in, what's your background. Everybody has suffering.
So that magic of Christmas is not bad.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
It's good. It's beautiful. Look at the lights, think about.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Those you know hems, and make the good you know,
cookies or pastries or whatever.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
God wants to give our senses rest.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
But he wants to give our senses rest and hope
and light because our daily life is difficult, and we're
not supposed to just forget about the difficult parts of
the major We're supposed to remember that concrete suffering that
you know, the panic that went through Mary and Joseph's
heart when they couldn't find a place in the inn
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right or when they heard that Herod was going to
kill the boys when they were fleeing. You know how
the Holy Mother's heart broke when she saw her hungry
little child cold laid in that major, knowing that he
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was our bread of life, the bread come down from heaven.
He was that perfect, unblemish lamb. And so it's important
that we keep it balanced this time of year, right,
so that we can recognize the depth of Christmas and
the depth that joy and that wonderful grace of Christ's
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birth had to pierce by understanding the depth of the darkness.
You know, the Israelite people had sinned with Adam and Eve,
and they had waited.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
For thousands of years for a savior, for someone to
redeem them. You know, maybe you think you've waited a
long time for God to fulfill his promises to you.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
You know, maybe you've prayed for five ten years for
the conversion of a child, right, or you know something
that the Lord's put in your heart that you've you know,
asked him for that you haven't seen the result from yet.
The Israelites waited generation after generation. They're waiting on the
Lord was so long made a hand down to the
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next generation not only the promises of God, but a
waiting heart.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Right.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Mothers had to form their children to have this waiting heart.
And finally, finally, after that scourging out of the heart
of the people of God.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
The innocent Christ Child is placed there.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
This candle here the advent reach is beautiful when you
look at it right now lit, And yet if it
was at night and you were gazing upon it, it
would be even more beautiful.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
You know, a candle illumined a dark room is much
more mysterious, mystical, right romantic.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Some people would say that, you know, even the spiritual
life can have that element of the of the romance
of looking at the divine bridegroom come down from heaven.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
And so the world was in darkness when Christ came.
And the hope that those first shepherds witnessed in gazing
upon the Christ Child in the Major was a hope
that illuminated their entire being. And they went forth and
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proclaimed that that hope to the world. They told everyone
about the redemption of the Lord that they had seen
that had come.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Into the world.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
All of this has a lot to do with Father
Alfred delp He was a Jesuit and his reflections on
the coming of the Christ Child, on this gift of
the Little Savior came from especially the ones I'll share today,
came from the depth of a concentration camp. Many of
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you cannot fathom what that would be like, right, you know,
most people have not visited a camp.
Speaker 5 (17:22):
Some have, Right.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
I've been through Auschwitz several times during during the times
i'd lived.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
In Poland, and there's something.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Eerie as you're walking through those those you know ovens,
the rooms that are the big ovens where they burn people,
or you see the piles of shoes and the pile
of hair that they collected, and all of this the
depth of the depravity of the Nazis and how they.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Killed people there.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
And you know, others may have read about, you know,
the camps that have existed in other places. I remember
in high school during a report on the concentration camps
in Bosnia when there was a war there and the
atrocities were just unheard of. Some people might have an
idea of what it's like to be tortured in a
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camp just by watching Mafia movies. I don't watch TV,
but there is something very similar to the way that
you know, the mafia goes after their their victims, and
you know the way that the KGB, infiltrated by the
Masfia would go after their people during during the Communist
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reign in Russia. And you know, having also lived in Russia,
and there are millions and millions and millions and millions,
way more than Auschwitz of Christians murdered in Siberia where
I worked, in fact, in Irkutsk, which is the head
of the the Dice there in eastern Siberia. They built
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a beautiful shine on the side of the cathedral and
they just brought land from all of the different areas
throughout Siberia.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Where there were martyrs, and I would hear first hand
stories from the people.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Would we would serve as to how they ended up
in Siberia or their relatives and what that.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Life was like.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
In the camps, you would find old ladies on the
street in a delirium telling these stories. Or we'd travel
five or six hours to a little village where the
church was still being upheld in a babushah, an old
lady's apartment, and there were two or three eighty year
old German women or Polish women who you know, had
been sent to the camps, or their family had and
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they were the descendants that were passing the faith down,
you know, baptizing the people of the village in secret
at night. And finally I was able to accompany a
priest to have a mass there for them, those people.
And you hear these stories, you understand that depth of
evil that enters into a concentration camp. And we have
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all of I consider beautiful books written by the saints
who suffered there, and we have stories about the saints
of Auschwitz, and we have you know, he leadeth me
and with God in Russia by Walter Shizik, right, he.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Served right where I did. It was almost like my work,
I felt like was a continuation of his.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
And so you can have another understanding of all of that,
and to take that and to then enter into the
hope of advent and to try to find that light
of Christ in the midst of such suffering can be
a contrast that greatly helps your heart to grow in
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an appreciation for what God has given us in Christmas.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
You know, the first advent that I spent in Russia,
it was simple.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
We barely had furniture, We had an apartment that was
constantly monitored.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
I think, you know, for dinner we had a roll
or two. It was, you know, a bulka.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
But in that utter poverty, there was something majestic about
knowing that the mass we attended, and then the euchres
that we held with in our hearts as we walked
forth was like one of the only sources of light
to any of those millions of people in the city
where we were.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
It's a mission.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
And ironically, as I sit here in the United States
now and I look around, I see how the world
has been covered with that same darkness that I felt
in Eastern Siberia when communism.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Fell, and you and I are called to let all
of that fall away.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
And sometimes it comes in the form of a darkness
overshadowing the world. Sometimes it's just noise and distractions, whether
it be you know, the noise and stores and all
of that, or online or social media, or just the
busyness of life to live fall away, to just recognize
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that the most important thing you can do is be
present with Christ at the major and to carry that
light that we receive in the eucharst out into this
world step by step, right, It's really beautiful.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
I also spent an.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
And a Christmas well in South Africa and one in Nigeria,
and they were very different. In South Africa, I was
with the orphans and a lot of the kids there
were from Notre Dame. They were volunteers, and so we
were able to kind of prepare the kids Ristmas, you know,
had a little bit of a feel we had, you know,
their parents sent packages and we had gifts and things.
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But the one in Nigeria, it was at the Muslim North,
I had nothing, and I remember going to church on
Christmas morning and nobody was even singing, and the bishop
was so angry he made the children get up and sing.
It was a very desert Christmas, right, but the people
there were suffering, and many were in hiding.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
And the amazing thing is that Christ was still born
for them.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Jesus still came down and touched the depth of our
hearts with a gift that drew us closer to Him
on that day. And so that kind of darkness that
can surround sometimes such a beautiful holiday can show us
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how bright that light of Christ can.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Feathered.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Alfred Delp always had a devotion to advent and so
he wrote much about it before he was at prison.
Speaker 5 (24:09):
But what I want to.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Share with you today is from his last.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
His last advent there in nineteen forty four, before nineteen
forty three, I guess before he died in nineteen forty four.
And the one thing that he proposed to people is
that advent is a way of life. We get these
beautiful four weeks to prepare our hearts for the coming
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of the Christ Child. But it's not just for Christmas
and then it's over. Right, We're called our entire lives
to cultivate that grace of thirst, of desiring, of yearning,
of waiting, like the Israelites did for thousands of years.
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And we get a little drop of that.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Christ this misgrace on December twenty fifth, right, and in
the days that follow, the weeks that follow, but we're
called to have that just increase our longing for Heaven,
where we will finally have consummated our hearts one with
the gift that the Christ Child came to give us. Right,
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all of life is an advent. All of life is
an advent. Father Alfred Delpe said He said that in
nineteen forty one he gave a series of sermons on Advent,
and he proposed four ways in which Advent calls a
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heart to communion and encounter with God, and these will
be what he continues to develop in the subsequent advents
leading up to his death. One in Advent, we're called
to be shaken awake. So adv that's not supposed to
just be like this la la la time between you know,
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the peak of Thanksgiving and the peak of Christmas, right
where we're preparing for our next feast. It's called to
be a stark time where we're shaken awake, where we
you know, we see the contradictions of life, and we see,
you know, what needs to be changed in our own lives,
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how we need to better prepare for the coming of
a Christ child. When a mom and a family is
preparing for a baby, there's much that needs to be
done in the household, right, and the house needs to
be baby proofed, right. Things need to be removed, things
need to be put in place. And so the same
thing is with our hearts. We're called to be shaken awake,
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like there is a real, a real child, the incarnate God,
Jesus Christ, who wants to come and live with us.
Yes on Christmas. And then continuing all the way through
the Christmas season up till February. Second, the feast of
the presentation, but the rest of our lives. What is
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it in your home, in your heart, in your life
that needs to be removed because it causes pain?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
To Christ?
Speaker 3 (27:21):
It's a sin, an addiction, an unforgiveness, a woundedness that
you won't let him heal. Christ wants you to kind
of use this type of advent as an examination of.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Conscience, be shaken awake.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
What is it that ooh, you don't want around that tiny,
innocent gift of the Christ Child. What is it that
you've promised to the Lord that you haven't fulfilled? What
is it that you've become lukewarm in that you can rearrange?
Speaker 6 (27:55):
And what can you do that is extra?
Speaker 3 (27:57):
What is the Lord calling you? You know, maybe you
tell ten percent a month. Maybe the Lord is putting.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Before you someone with a great need and you're being
stingy in your heart.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
What is he asking you to do more for his
poor right or for the Church? Is ther need at
your perish Secondly, we're call during advent to integrity and authenticity.
Right after Thanksgiving, people take down your Thanksgiving decorations and
put up their Christmas and I purposefully try to have
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a time of silence in my home, of emptiness, of
just a little bit of purple. Right, because Christ comes
as the naked christ Child, and He wants to enter
our hearts in nakedness. He wants us to be authentic,
and to have integrity and authenticity, you have to take
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off the makeup, take off the mask, and to let
Christ really look at you.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
As you are, to not put a twist on something,
to not be trying.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
To make yourself look better, right, or to be important,
but to be that naked child in the arms of
a father. To live authentically, which means to step naked
in the path that the Lord is asked of you,
so that when people look at your lives they see truth,
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which is the truth about God and the truth of you.
Our lady is the most wonderful example of somebody who
lived authenticity. She was immaculate. We celebrated that feasts yesterday
of the Immaculate Conception, which means there was nothing false
in her and nothing dirty, nothing blocking the grace of God,
which is what made her so pure.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
And holy and beautiful. And that's what we're called to live.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
In authenticity, the reality of who we are, in our
gifts and our our desires and all that, and then
on our failing send in our stresses, and to hand
that to the Lord.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Right to be people who live what we speak more
than we speak about it.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Right to be people of the of service more than
people of the word. Number three an advent. We're called
to confess and proclaim our faith. Right, there's a lot
of fun Christmas things going on. It's awesome, I say,
take part in it. I think there's such a lack
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of innocence in the world. Christmas kind of calls everyone
to that innocence and that childlikeness of heart.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
And yet don't stop with just the secular.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
You know, there's nothing wrong with Santa Claus and all
of that, but take it deeper. My mom always had
a beautiful statue she put up of Santa Claus kneeling
at the manger. Right, even Santa serves God as his king.
So proclaim the faith in how you interact with Christmas.
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You know, make sure that those who encounter you know
that you are preparing for the coming of Baby Jesus
and that he is the center of your world. And
respond to God with reverence and awe. God is going
to be dropping these little beautiful graces on you to
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prepare you for Christmas. And if you don't stop in
silence and in waiting and receive them, then you'll miss them.
Would we respond to God and his.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Gifts with gratitude, with reverence and with awe.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
It opens our hearts up to receive and absorb those
graces in full. So in advent we remember how our lady,
you know, was surprised at the gift of the Annunciation,
and we read about the visitation. We think of all
those moments of her preparing with Joseph for Jesus coming,
you know, the swadling clothes, she prepared, all of that right,
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and God is going to be giving you these little
drops of grace this advent.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Respond to them with reverence and awe. Right, when you
light your Advent wreath, whether it be daily or once.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
A week, take a moment when you light that candle
to remember that Christ is our light right and he's.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Coming into the world, and just absorb that grace for
a moment. This is all about his life and his
life in solitary confinement. Father Alfred delp eventually made his
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final vows.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
When he was in the prison, he was so sad
that he was imprisoned, and they smuggled in permission from his.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Superiors, and actually one of the guards was a witness
of it.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
And there were some women that served him in smuggling
clean clothes and things, and they would hide what he
needed to say Mass in that right, and they would
try to torture him by leaving the light on day
and night and watching him, and he lived, and then
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the interrogation, and they would beat him to a pulp sometimes,
but he would never betray people. To live for a
longing of Christ in the midst of such suffering, and
to be have your faith grow instead of diminish is
a heroic grace given by God.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
But instead of being intimidated.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Away from his vocation, he went forward during imprisonment, and
he embraced whatever the life of a priest would look
like to him, and even if that meant a great persecution.
Right in nineteen forty one, before he was imprisoned, he
(34:13):
preached a beautiful homily about the different ways that we
are called to.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Pour out ourselves for Christ. And in some ways.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
During advent we are preparing. It's what did Saint John
the Baptist say, make way for the coming of the Lord.
We're preparing ourselves for martyrdom. We're emptying ourselves so that
not that we will bear great fruit, or we will
so the Christ Child can be laid within us. The
way that the Christ Child was given to our lady
and became her whole identity, her whole life centered around
(34:49):
him eternally, right, not just for the years he was little,
her whole being conformed to her role as being the
Mother of God. And so we're preparing the way during
advent for a martyrdom.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Right.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
What is a martyrdom. It's a witness. It's one who
gives up their own life for Christ. And we're all
called to have a martyr's heart, right, We're all called
to be that mother martyr.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
It's really beautiful.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
A few weeks ago I actually woke up with a
dream of my own martyrdom, which was strange because I
don't think about that. But I remembered years ago when
the Lord said, we must live every day with a
martyr's heart, right, emptying yourself out for others. Well, I
went to work and one of the little five year
(35:43):
old boys I take care of in the just out
of the blue, said to me, you know, Mary, you
love God a lot, and that's why you're going to
be that special person for him someday. And I said,
a special person. What do you mean special person? And
he said, well, one that teaches other people about God.
(36:07):
And I said like a missionary and he said no.
And I said, like a doctor, because he knew I
get my doctorate.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
We had talked about that, and he said no.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
And I said, like a saint, because we were talking
about how we're all called to be saints. He goes, no,
it's that m word. Oh, a martyr.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
You're going to be a martyr someday. But remember you're
a mother martyr. You're a mama martyr.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
And I came home and reflected on it. I said,
that's so odd. I just had a dream last night
about that. What was the Lord saying to me at
the beginning of Edva. We're all called to be that
mother martyrs, called to follow our lady who was the
first martyr. Look at all the swords in her heart,
how she suffered and emptied herself out, poured her own
(36:53):
blood out so that Christ could have a heart and
a blood and a womb to surround him. Right, she
gave all of herself, all of our Dna into Christ,
all of her love, all of her attention, and that's
why she's the Queen of martyrs.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
She emptied herself out so.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
That Christ could be laid in her heart right, so
that she could be the major for which people ate
the bread of life. And we're called, not just me,
all of us to do the same thing as a mother,
to prepare our hearts like our lady did. Right, even
if you're a man, it's really incredible because our.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Lady received Christ into her own womb.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
But both men and women we receive Christ is body, blood, soulen,
divinity beating in his heart in the Eucharist every time
we go to Mass and receive communion.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
So in that way, you're called to receive and.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
Become that same tabernacle of Christ that the Mother of
God was. To do that, you have to prepare yourself
during advent to be a martyr. You have to empty
yourself out and to bleed yourself out so that the
Christ Child can be laid within you, not just for
a few weeks, forever, so that you are living and
(38:16):
dying for Christ. Father Alfred deut really understood this. He
preached about the symbolism of a blessed candle like we
have here.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
He said, a.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
Blessed candle gives light at the cost of their own substance.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Right, we're all called to not only.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Light a candle up, but to become a candle. My
dad makes fun of me because I do too much
and I can't keep up right between work and the
foundation and prayer and foster babies and helping all these people.
He's like, marry your burden the wick at both ends.
You know what, they say, You're gonna burn out?
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Is it really that bad?
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Right, we're all called this, Father Alfred delp said, to
be like a blessed candle that gives light to the
world at the cost of their own substance. Right again,
he speaks about how we're all called to fulfill the
vocation of a grain of wheat that's called that falls
(39:27):
to the ground and dies to bear fruit, to become
a martyr with a motherly heart for the Christ Child.
We're called to be a grain of wheat to be
poured out extravagantly, not miserlyly. Oh you know, I helped
this person, so I'm not helping them, right. Or I
(39:49):
donated this amount of money, so the rest goes in
the bank so I can have another great vacation or
buy another house, or whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
That you like to spend your money on.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
You know, i' already visited my mom at Thanksgiving? Do
I really have to go back during You know, that's
a miserly heart.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
We're called to be a grain of.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
Wheat that gives extravagantly, that gives everything always right, to
be sacrificed, to give oneself, even unto death, to shine
a light from one's very substance for the benefit of others,
to be a light that enlightens the nation's right. We
(40:30):
do that by entering into this martyrdom during Lent Advent,
so that the Christ Child can be placed within.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Our newly prepared heart.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Shortly before his execution, Father Delp assured his friends that
his life would be.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Sacrificed and not destroyed. He knew this and he lived it.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
He said, it's the time of sowing and not of harvesting.
God is sowing, and one day he will harvest again.
I will try to do one thing. I will try
at least to be a fruitful and healthy seed falling
into the soil and into the Lord God's hands. In
(41:13):
our world today, it's everything is productivity based.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
People do things to see a result. And really, what
we're called to do, is Christians.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
Is to do God's will because it's God's will, and
to leave the fruit and the rest of everything to him.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Right, We're called to be prudent stewards of his gifts.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
And yet, you know, when I look at my life
in Russia, I was going through some old pictures, what I.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
Did was nothing.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
I stood there as a candle being burned. Right.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
I brought just that presence of Christ and his love
to a barren desert land. There isn't a whole lot
of tangible fruit left as to what Mary Koskin did there. Right,
I still think it was my greatest mission, because we're
just called to be good seed. We're called to just
(42:08):
allow God to show us wherever he wants, and then
to trust that he will bear fruit, and he will
bear fruit later. Jesus is bearing fruit in Russia through
the presence I was there twenty years ago, through the
missionaries who are there now that I have no contact with.
(42:28):
We're called to be faithful, like mother Teresa said, not successful,
and you know that could be true in your own family.
Sometimes parents are like, you know, you know, is this
really helping my children? I don't see a difference, or
my older ones left the church or thinks. God calls
you to be good seed, He inspires you on how
to parent. You're called to do all.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
That, and then you have to trust him.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
And whether or not that seed takes hold and bears
fruit is in his hands. And who will harvest that
in the heart of your child might be someone long
after you're gone, but there's an element of trust.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
We're all called to just die every day and to
allow the.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Christ Child to increase within us and in the places
where we lay his fruit, and to leave it in
his hands when we're blind to that. I'm sure Father
Alfred Delp had no idea a book would be published.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
By Ignacious Press on his spirituality for Edvan.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
He just wrote on these little tiny slips of paper
and smuggled them out. Somebody else gathered put them together,
wrote these reflections and published it.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
And now you're bearing the fruit. We're all called to
just do our little part.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
And to trust that even like Saint Bernard of Clervaux
always said, if we're loving God and doing his will,
just for the sake of loving and doing his will,
it's enough.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
Lastly, here I want to share some specific.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
Specific reflections that he gave to us that were written
in the Tagol prison in Berlin. Oh, it was December
nineteen forty four. It was right before he was killed.
He must have been killed, I guess before the turn
of the year.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
I forget when.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Maybe right after Christmas or no, he was executed February second,
nineteen forty five. Okay, he said, Advent is a time
of being deeply shaken so that man.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Will wake up to himself.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
The prerequisite for fulfilled advent is a renunciation of the
arrogant gestures and tempting dreams with which and in which
man is always deceiving himself. Thus he compels reality to
use violence to bring him around, violence and much dis
stress and suffering.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
It's taking off that mask.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
It's becoming a living martyr that bleeds for Christ, bleeds
yourself out so that Christ may live in you. Being
shaken awake is entirely appropriate to thoughts and experiences of advent,
but at the same time There is much more to
advent than this. The shaking is what sets up the
(45:25):
secret blessedness of the season and enkindles the inner light
in our hearts. So advent will be blessed with the
promises of the Lord. The shaking, awakening. With these life
merely begins to become capable of advent. It is precisely
in the severity of this awakening, in the helplessness of
(45:49):
coming to consciousness, in the wretchedness of experiencing our limitations,
and the golden threads running between Heaven and Earth during
the season reach us. These are threads that give the
world a hint of the abundance to which it is called,
the abundance of which it is capable. It's a beautiful
(46:10):
image here. We're called to cast the world away, to
enter into that authenticity, that nakedness before God. And He's
throwing these golden threads from heaven down to touch us
during advent, right to draw our attention up to our
eternal goal in heaven. He proposes that during advent we
(46:35):
should reflect on the voice calling to us in the wilderness.
Right blessed is the era that can honestly claim it's
not a desert wilderness. Woe, however, to the era in
which the voices calling in the wilderness had fallen silent.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
In our world, that voices.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
Call in silent, fallen silent, shouted down by the noise
of the day, prohibit or drowned in the intoxication of progress,
restricted and quiet out of fear and cowardice. What has
happened to provetic voices in the world today? The devastation
(47:14):
will soon take over so horrendously on all sides that
the scriptural reference to a desert wilderness will spontaneously occur
to all of us.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
I think still, the calling voices are not yet raising.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Their lamentations and accusation Such John the Baptist, figures forged
by the lightning of mission and vocation, should never.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Be lacking from life. We need the John the Baptists right.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
These are people not who just like the sound of
their own voice, but allowed to say I must decrease,
he must increase, to allow the voice of Christ to
rain through them. While they display an utter humility and
purity of heart and of love. These voices are led
(48:07):
by their hearts, and that is why their vision is
so keen and their judgment so incorruptible. John pull the
second was one of those. They do not call for
the sake of calling, or to hear their own voice.
Although they themselves are excluded from the small intimate circle
(48:28):
in the foreground. They might not be the most popular
or all of that. They do not call because they envy.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Men such pleasant earthly hours.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
They have the great consolation that one can know only
after having stepped beyond the deepest and most extreme limits
of existence. These voices that must speak to the world
get their reward in Christ alone. They call out blessing
and salvation. They call man to face his last chain,
(49:00):
because they already feel the ground trembling and the timbers creaking,
and they see the steadfast mountains deeply quaking, and the
stars of heaven dangling insecurely. They call man to the
potential of averting the spreading wilderness which is about to
fall upon him and crush him by means of the
(49:21):
greater strength of a converted heart. Oh God, modern man
knows once again, in a very practical sense, what it
means to clear away rubble and make paths straight again.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
He will have to know it and do it for
long years to come.
Speaker 3 (49:41):
May the calling voices the prophetic John the Baptists indeed
ring out, pointing out the wilderness, and spiritually overcoming the devastation.
May the advent figure of John the Baptist, of the
inexortable messenger and warning prophet in God's name not be
(50:01):
a stranger to the wilderness of our times and our ruins.
Much in our lives is dependent upon figures such as these.
For how shall we hear if no one calls and
the storm of delusion and wild destruction truly overcome us.
Then he goes on to reflect on our lady and
(50:24):
an angel of the Annunciation. He's writing this from solitary confinement,
right before he's killed. I see this year's Advent with
an intensity and presentiment like never before. When I pace
back and forth, if my cell three steps forward, three.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Steps back, hands in irons ahead of me, he.
Speaker 3 (50:47):
Was always chained, always ahead of me, an unknown destiny.
I understand very differently than before those ancient promises of
the coming of the Lord who.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Will redeem us and set us.
Speaker 3 (51:01):
And along with these thoughts comes the memory of the
angel that a good person gave me for Advent two
years ago.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
This angel held a banner rejoice, for the Lord is near.
A bomb destroyed that angel that I had received.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
A bomb also killed the good person who gives it
to me, who gave it to me. The terror of
this time would not be bearable any more than the
terror brought on by our world.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
Situation if we comprehend it.
Speaker 3 (51:35):
Except for this other knowledge that continually encourages us and
sets us straight.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
It's the knowledge of the promises that are being spoken
right in the middle of the terror, and that are valid.
Speaker 3 (51:49):
What go to the wounds of your life, not to
the happy Christmas times, Go to the struggles in the
darkness those places, and ask the Lord, what are the
promises that you're making to me here?
Speaker 2 (52:07):
It is also.
Speaker 3 (52:08):
Knowledge of the quiet angels of annunciation, who speak their
message of blessing into the distress, who scatter their seeds
of the blessing that will begin to grow even in
the middle of the night. These are not yet the
loud angels of public jubilation and fulfillment. These angels are
(52:30):
of advent. What are the angels planting in your heart
in the night of advent right now that God wants
to give to you? What are those seeds? What are
the plans that He has for you?
Speaker 2 (52:45):
What is He calling you to do?
Speaker 3 (52:48):
Silently and unnoticed, they come into private rooms and appear
before our hearts.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
As they did long ago.
Speaker 3 (52:55):
Silently, these angels bring the questions of God and proclaim
to us the miracles.
Speaker 2 (53:01):
Of God, with whom nothing is impossible.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
Advent, despite all eagerness, is a time of refuge because
it has received a message. If people know nothing about
the message and the promises anymore, if they only experience
the four walls and the prison windows of their gray
days and no longer perceive the quiet footsteps of the
announcing angels, If the angels murmured word does not simultaneously
(53:32):
shake us to the depths and lift our souls that
it's over for us.
Speaker 2 (53:38):
You have to see beyond the.
Speaker 3 (53:39):
Walls of whatever is imprisoning you, then we are living
wasted time. We're dead, long before anybody else does anything
evil to us. To believe in the golden seeds of God,
that the angels are scattered and continue to offer an
open heart are the first things that we must do
(54:02):
with our lives, And the next is to go through
these gray days as announcing messengers ourselves. So much courage
needs strengthening. So much despair needs comforting, so much hardship
needs a gentle hand and an illuminating interpretation. So much
(54:24):
loneliness cries out for a liberating word. So much loss
and pain seek a spiritual meaning. God's messengers know about
the blessing that the Lord is planted even within these
historic times. To wait in faith for the fruitfulness of
the silent earth and for the abundance of the coming harvest,
(54:45):
needs to understand the world, even this world in advent.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
To wait in faith no longer because we trust.
Speaker 3 (54:55):
The earth or the stars, or our temperament and good current,
but to wait because we have perceived God's messages, and
we know about his announcing angels. We've even encountered one.
And now he leads us to reflect on the blessed Mother.
(55:16):
She is the most comforting figure of advent. That the
angel's message found her heart ready, and the word became flesh,
and in the holy room of her motherly heart, the
earth grew far beyond its limitations into the human divine sphere.
These are the holiest comforts of advent. What used to
(55:38):
us are the thought and lived experience of our affliction.
If no bridge is built to the other's shore. How
can the terror and chaos and confusion help us if
no light flares up to equal and overcome the darkness.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
What used to us is the.
Speaker 3 (55:57):
Shivering from cold and hardship, in which the world is
freezing to death the more it loses, loses and deadens
itself deep down inside. If we do not, at the
same time experience that grace which is mightier than the
danger and the lostness. That God would become a mother's son,
(56:21):
and that a woman would walk upon this earth, her
body consecrated as a holy temple and tabernacle for God
is truly the Earth's culmination and the fulfillment of its expectation.
The comfort of advent shines forth in so many various
ways from this hidden figure of the blessed and waiting Mary. Oh,
(56:45):
that this was granted to the earth to bring forth
such fruit, that the world was permitted to enter into
the presence of God through the sheltering warmth, as well
as the helpful and reliable patronage of her motherly heart.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
The gray horizons must light up.
Speaker 3 (57:06):
Only the foreground is screaming so loudly and penetratingly. Farther
back where it has to do with things that really count.
The situation is already changing. The woman has conceived the child,
sheltered him under her heart, and has given birth to
her son.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
The world has come under a different law. All these
are not merely.
Speaker 3 (57:28):
One time historical events upon which our salvation rests. They
are simultaneously the model figures and events that announce to
us the new order of things, of life, of our existence.
We have to remember courageously today that the blessed Woman
(57:48):
of Nazareth is one of these illuminating figures. At a
deeper level of being. Even our times and our destiny
bear the blessing and the mystery of God. The most
important thing is to wait, to be able to wait
until their hour comes. Therefore, let us kneel down and
(58:14):
pray for the threefold blessing and the threefold consecration of advent.
Speaker 2 (58:22):
Let us pray for the.
Speaker 3 (58:24):
Openness and willingness to hear the warning of the prophets
of the Lord, and to overcome the devastation of life
through conversion of.
Speaker 2 (58:33):
Our own heart.
Speaker 3 (58:34):
Let us not shun and suppress the earnest words of
the calling voices or those who are our executioners today
may be our accusers once again tomorrow. Sorry, let us
not shun and suppress the earnest words of the calling voices,
or those who are our executioners today may be our
(58:57):
accusers once again tomorrow because we silence the truth.
Speaker 2 (59:04):
Once again, Let us.
Speaker 3 (59:05):
Kneel down and pray for keen eyes capable of seeing
God's messengers of annunciation, for vigilant hearts wise enough to
perceive the words of the promise. The world is more
than its burden. Life is more than the sum of
its gray days. The golden threads of the genuine reality
(59:26):
are already shining through everywhere. Let us know this, and
let us ourselves be comforting messengers. Hope grows through the
one who is himself a person of the hope and
of the promise. One more time, we want to kneel
and pray for faith in life's motherly consecration in the
(59:47):
figure of.
Speaker 2 (59:48):
The blessed woman from Nazareth.
Speaker 3 (59:51):
Already today and for always, life is torn away from
the cruel and merciless powers.
Speaker 2 (59:58):
Let us be patient and.
Speaker 3 (59:59):
Wait with an advent, waiting for the hour in which
it pleases the Lord to appear new even during this night,
as fruit and mystery of this time advent is a
time of the promise, not yet the fulfillment.
Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
We are all still standing in the middle of the
whole thing, in.
Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
The logical relentlessness and in inevitability of destiny. To captive eyes,
it still appears that the ultimate throw of the dice, indeed,
will be cast here below, in this valley, on these battlefields,
in these camps, prisons and cellars. One keeping vigil though,
(01:00:46):
senses that other powers at work are at work, and
they can await that coming hour.
Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
The sounds of.
Speaker 3 (01:00:55):
Devastation and destruction, the cries of self importance and eirance,
the weeping of despair and powerlessness.
Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
Still is filling the world.
Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
Yet, standing silently all along the horizon are the eternal realities,
with their age old longing. The first gentle light of
the glorious abundance to come is already shining above them.
From out there, the first sounds are ringing out, like
the shepherd's flutes and a boy's choir singing. They do
(01:01:28):
not yet form a song or a melody. It's still
too far off, and only the first announcement is made.
Still it's happening. This is today and tomorrow the angels
will relate loudly and jubilantly what has happened, and we
will know it will be blessed if we have believed
(01:01:50):
and trusted in Advent. So we thank Father Alfred delp
for these reflections, and add that that came from his
solitary confinement in the German prison before he was murdered.
We asked him to intercede for us from heaven to
prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ, to be
(01:02:13):
shaken awake, to bleed as martyrs of love, for the
Christ Child to become pregnant with the Little Child of Bethlehem,
and to take him as a great light out to
the world. We pray for the grace to decrease and
allow the Lord to increase. We pray for the grace
(01:02:35):
to not look at the fruit of our lives, but
instead the integrity of just loving and doing the will
of God for its own sake, and trusting for the
Lord to bear the fruit.
Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
We ask not only to plant seeds.
Speaker 3 (01:02:51):
In the world, but become that golden seed that dies,
the candle that's blessed and who is burnt out.
Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
By shedding the light of Christ into the world.
Speaker 3 (01:03:04):
We ask our Lady to intercede and to Moldust according
to her most immaculate heart, so that we will be
made worthy to receive Christ, not only at Christmas, but
at the end of all time.
Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
Glory be to the Father and to the Son, and
to the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever
shall be world without under Anne Ali Lujah.
Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
Hello, God's beloved.
Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
I'm Annabel Moseley, author, professor of theology and host of
Then Sings My Soul and Destination Sainthood on WCAT Radio.
I invite you to listen in and find inspiration along
this sacred journey. We're traveling together to make our lives
a masterpiece and with God's grace, become saints. Join me
(01:04:00):
Bill Moseley for Then Sings My Song and Destination Sainthood
on WCAT Radio.
Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
God bless you. Remember you are never alone. God is
always with you.
Speaker 4 (01:04:17):
Thank you for listening to a production of WCAT Radio.
Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
Please join us in our mission of evangelization, and don't
forget Love lifts up where knowledge takes flight.
You're listening to WCAT radio, your home for authentic Catholic programming.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
To the Heart of Fiat crucified Love. This week we
are going to speak a little bit about this holy
priest who was martyred by the Nazis. He was a
German Jesuit and his name is Father Alfred delp and
he wrote beautiful meditations on Advent.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I read them a few years.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Ago, and this morning I was inspired to pull them
out again and just share with you some of his
meditations from the Advent directly preceding his execution for being
a Catholic priest. And he has really profound insights, because
when you're at the point of giving your life for
(00:57):
Christ and facing death, you see things with the clarity
that otherwise you might not see.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
So I wanted to just share some.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Of his writings from that, particularly from that last Advent
in nineteen forty four before he was killed, and help
you to apply that somewhat to your own life. So
we start with a prayer and we'll do Oh, come
oncoming Daniel, in the name of the Father and the
(01:29):
Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen, Come, Holy Spirit, kill
the hearts of your faithful enkindle in us the fire
of your love. Send forth your spirit, and we will
be recreated, And.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
We ask you, blessed Mother, to open up your immaculate
heart and to pour out upon us those gifts of
the Holy Spirit that you received as our spiritual mother.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
For us. We ask you to help us to prepare.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Not only our hearts and homes for the coming of
Christ at Christmas, but also in this long advent of life,
to prepare them for eternal life with Jesus in heaven.
And we ask this always through your intercession. Hail Mary,
full of grace.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
The Lord is with thee.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit
of thy womb. Jesus, Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray
for us sinners.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
And now at the hour of our death.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
Amen.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
Oh come, Oh Come, I.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Just sang it in the other room.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Oh come, o com me mad you wild run some
captain is trial that morns in lonely.
Speaker 6 (03:32):
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Men a Lee Lujah.
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And beyond the age of needing perfection.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
I learned as a missionary that when you give God
what you have, sometimes he even allows things to be imperfect,
to grow your humility and your purity of love, and
then he bears greater fruits. So it's my fingers and
voice tripped through that. I kept thinking, well, don't take
yourself too seriously. I don't have time to play guitar
(08:38):
much these days, so we are going to talk about
Alfred depp Delp the Priest and Martyr. It's a beautiful book.
I do recommend you getting it, and you could really
gain a lot from that, even if it wasn't during advent, right,
but it's a beautiful way of making your advent a
(09:00):
little bit deeper. As you all know, I have a
great devotion to the infant crucified Christ and his sufferings
in the manger, his sufferings as a child.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
And looking at advent through the eyes.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Of this holy priest who suffered, you know, his last
advent in high security prison on his way to being killed.
It helps us to remember that Christ came and it
was beautiful and you know, the choirs of angels saying
and all of that, but there was a great suffering
(09:38):
that followed him.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Because he was the redeemer of the world.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
He gave us the savior, and we hear Sinon and
the prophecy that he gives saying, you know, this child
is for the rise and the fall of many. One
that will be contradicted, right, one who would cause his
mother's heart to be pe here'd be of this beautiful
image behind us, of our lady. And Simeon said, you
(10:05):
yourself as sword shall peers. Sometimes I think we forget
in all the holiday bustle, right, and the magic of
this time of the year, and the excitement that the
gift of Christ to us and Bethlehem was a gift
of the little crucified Lord, and one that came with
(10:27):
concrete pain. And you know, I was a missionary for
many years, and I dreamed about being a missionary when
I was little, and I would have these images of
what it would be like.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
To live, for example, in Africa, right, and help with
the orphans, and to have that poor, you know, dirt floor,
and like, there's.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Something in me that's really attracted to entering into dire
poverty and serving people there. But your imagination can't really
quite take hold of a full picture and how difficult
it is to actually be that missionary, right, And so
you know, that cool looking dirt floor is hard, and
(11:11):
it's hard to sleep at night, and you're coughing up
dirt that's you know, dust that's in your sinuses, and
it's cold at night, and even in Africa sometimes depending
on where, but it'll get real cold at night and
then really.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Hot during the day.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
That heat is something you can't get away from. There's
not you know, air conditioning. There's always that panic in
your heart that a snake that you saw autside is
going to get in your little hut, right because none
of them are as secure as our.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
House is here.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
And even living in South Texas, there are times where
you know snakes would come through the toilet system or
would somehow.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Get in the house. And those are you know, better
built houses.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
So think about when I was in Africa, you know,
some of those concrete sufferings, the hunger, and then once
you got offered food, not knowing where it came from,
would it make you sick?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Could you eat it?
Speaker 3 (12:05):
You know what?
Speaker 2 (12:05):
The ramifications would be that threat looming of.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Knowing that you are an American and you are a
Catholic or a Christian in an area where they tried
to kidnap and kill Americans and Catholics and Christians, and
the list goes on and on. Not being able to
sleep and no communication with the outside world, and you think.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
About the smell, just the smell sometimes.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Of the orphanages in these institutions in Russia, Like the
pictures of me with an orphan is beautiful, but the
smell something I'll never forget. So sometimes when we think
about something, you know, we kind of make it glorified
in our mind.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
And that allows us to do.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
That with Christmas, to think of the beautiful baby and
the manger Wright and Mary and Joseph and these wonderful images,
because our hearts need a rest our. Hearts have a
lot of suffering in this fallen world. It doesn't matter
what country you live in, what's your background. Everybody has suffering.
So that magic of Christmas is not bad.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
It's good. It's beautiful. Look at the lights, think about.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Those you know hems, and make the good you know,
cookies or pastries or whatever.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
God wants to give our senses rest.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
But he wants to give our senses rest and hope
and light because our daily life is difficult, and we're
not supposed to just forget about the difficult parts of
the major We're supposed to remember that concrete suffering that
you know, the panic that went through Mary and Joseph's
heart when they couldn't find a place in the inn
(13:49):
right or when they heard that Herod was going to
kill the boys when they were fleeing. You know how
the Holy Mother's heart broke when she saw her hungry
little child cold laid in that major, knowing that he
(14:10):
was our bread of life, the bread come down from heaven.
He was that perfect, unblemish lamb. And so it's important
that we keep it balanced this time of year, right,
so that we can recognize the depth of Christmas and
the depth that joy and that wonderful grace of Christ's
(14:37):
birth had to pierce by understanding the depth of the darkness.
You know, the Israelite people had sinned with Adam and Eve,
and they had waited.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
For thousands of years for a savior, for someone to
redeem them. You know, maybe you think you've waited a
long time for God to fulfill his promises to you.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
You know, maybe you've prayed for five ten years for
the conversion of a child, right, or you know something
that the Lord's put in your heart that you've you know,
asked him for that you haven't seen the result from yet.
The Israelites waited generation after generation. They're waiting on the
Lord was so long made a hand down to the
(15:19):
next generation not only the promises of God, but a
waiting heart.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Right.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Mothers had to form their children to have this waiting heart.
And finally, finally, after that scourging out of the heart
of the people of God.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
The innocent Christ Child is placed there.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
This candle here the advent reach is beautiful when you
look at it right now lit, And yet if it
was at night and you were gazing upon it, it
would be even more beautiful.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
You know, a candle illumined a dark room is much
more mysterious, mystical, right romantic.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Some people would say that, you know, even the spiritual
life can have that element of the of the romance
of looking at the divine bridegroom come down from heaven.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
And so the world was in darkness when Christ came.
And the hope that those first shepherds witnessed in gazing
upon the Christ Child in the Major was a hope
that illuminated their entire being. And they went forth and
(16:39):
proclaimed that that hope to the world. They told everyone
about the redemption of the Lord that they had seen
that had come.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Into the world.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
All of this has a lot to do with Father
Alfred delp He was a Jesuit and his reflections on
the coming of the Christ Child, on this gift of
the Little Savior came from especially the ones I'll share today,
came from the depth of a concentration camp. Many of
(17:13):
you cannot fathom what that would be like, right, you know,
most people have not visited a camp.
Speaker 5 (17:22):
Some have, Right.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
I've been through Auschwitz several times during during the times
i'd lived.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
In Poland, and there's something.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Eerie as you're walking through those those you know ovens,
the rooms that are the big ovens where they burn people,
or you see the piles of shoes and the pile
of hair that they collected, and all of this the
depth of the depravity of the Nazis and how they.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Killed people there.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
And you know, others may have read about, you know,
the camps that have existed in other places. I remember
in high school during a report on the concentration camps
in Bosnia when there was a war there and the
atrocities were just unheard of. Some people might have an
idea of what it's like to be tortured in a
(18:15):
camp just by watching Mafia movies. I don't watch TV,
but there is something very similar to the way that
you know, the mafia goes after their their victims, and
you know the way that the KGB, infiltrated by the
Masfia would go after their people during during the Communist
(18:38):
reign in Russia. And you know, having also lived in Russia,
and there are millions and millions and millions and millions,
way more than Auschwitz of Christians murdered in Siberia where
I worked, in fact, in Irkutsk, which is the head
of the the Dice there in eastern Siberia. They built
(19:02):
a beautiful shine on the side of the cathedral and
they just brought land from all of the different areas
throughout Siberia.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Where there were martyrs, and I would hear first hand
stories from the people.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Would we would serve as to how they ended up
in Siberia or their relatives and what that.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Life was like.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
In the camps, you would find old ladies on the
street in a delirium telling these stories. Or we'd travel
five or six hours to a little village where the
church was still being upheld in a babushah, an old
lady's apartment, and there were two or three eighty year
old German women or Polish women who you know, had
been sent to the camps, or their family had and
(19:49):
they were the descendants that were passing the faith down,
you know, baptizing the people of the village in secret
at night. And finally I was able to accompany a
priest to have a mass there for them, those people.
And you hear these stories, you understand that depth of
evil that enters into a concentration camp. And we have
(20:11):
all of I consider beautiful books written by the saints
who suffered there, and we have stories about the saints
of Auschwitz, and we have you know, he leadeth me
and with God in Russia by Walter Shizik, right, he.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Served right where I did. It was almost like my work,
I felt like was a continuation of his.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
And so you can have another understanding of all of that,
and to take that and to then enter into the
hope of advent and to try to find that light
of Christ in the midst of such suffering can be
a contrast that greatly helps your heart to grow in
(20:56):
an appreciation for what God has given us in Christmas.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
You know, the first advent that I spent in Russia,
it was simple.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
We barely had furniture, We had an apartment that was
constantly monitored.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
I think, you know, for dinner we had a roll
or two. It was, you know, a bulka.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
But in that utter poverty, there was something majestic about
knowing that the mass we attended, and then the euchres
that we held with in our hearts as we walked
forth was like one of the only sources of light
to any of those millions of people in the city
where we were.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
It's a mission.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
And ironically, as I sit here in the United States
now and I look around, I see how the world
has been covered with that same darkness that I felt
in Eastern Siberia when communism.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Fell, and you and I are called to let all
of that fall away.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
And sometimes it comes in the form of a darkness
overshadowing the world. Sometimes it's just noise and distractions, whether
it be you know, the noise and stores and all
of that, or online or social media, or just the
busyness of life to live fall away, to just recognize
(22:26):
that the most important thing you can do is be
present with Christ at the major and to carry that
light that we receive in the eucharst out into this
world step by step, right, It's really beautiful.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
I also spent an.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
And a Christmas well in South Africa and one in Nigeria,
and they were very different. In South Africa, I was
with the orphans and a lot of the kids there
were from Notre Dame. They were volunteers, and so we
were able to kind of prepare the kids Ristmas, you know,
had a little bit of a feel we had, you know,
their parents sent packages and we had gifts and things.
(23:06):
But the one in Nigeria, it was at the Muslim North,
I had nothing, and I remember going to church on
Christmas morning and nobody was even singing, and the bishop
was so angry he made the children get up and sing.
It was a very desert Christmas, right, but the people
there were suffering, and many were in hiding.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
And the amazing thing is that Christ was still born
for them.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Jesus still came down and touched the depth of our
hearts with a gift that drew us closer to Him
on that day. And so that kind of darkness that
can surround sometimes such a beautiful holiday can show us
(23:57):
how bright that light of Christ can.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Feathered.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Alfred Delp always had a devotion to advent and so
he wrote much about it before he was at prison.
Speaker 5 (24:09):
But what I want to.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Share with you today is from his last.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
His last advent there in nineteen forty four, before nineteen
forty three, I guess before he died in nineteen forty four.
And the one thing that he proposed to people is
that advent is a way of life. We get these
beautiful four weeks to prepare our hearts for the coming
(24:35):
of the Christ Child. But it's not just for Christmas
and then it's over. Right, We're called our entire lives
to cultivate that grace of thirst, of desiring, of yearning,
of waiting, like the Israelites did for thousands of years.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
And we get a little drop of that.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Christ this misgrace on December twenty fifth, right, and in
the days that follow, the weeks that follow, but we're
called to have that just increase our longing for Heaven,
where we will finally have consummated our hearts one with
the gift that the Christ Child came to give us. Right,
(25:24):
all of life is an advent. All of life is
an advent. Father Alfred Delpe said He said that in
nineteen forty one he gave a series of sermons on Advent,
and he proposed four ways in which Advent calls a
(25:46):
heart to communion and encounter with God, and these will
be what he continues to develop in the subsequent advents
leading up to his death. One in Advent, we're called
to be shaken awake. So adv that's not supposed to
just be like this la la la time between you know,
(26:07):
the peak of Thanksgiving and the peak of Christmas, right
where we're preparing for our next feast. It's called to
be a stark time where we're shaken awake, where we
you know, we see the contradictions of life, and we see,
you know, what needs to be changed in our own lives,
(26:29):
how we need to better prepare for the coming of
a Christ child. When a mom and a family is
preparing for a baby, there's much that needs to be
done in the household, right, and the house needs to
be baby proofed, right. Things need to be removed, things
need to be put in place. And so the same
thing is with our hearts. We're called to be shaken awake,
(26:53):
like there is a real, a real child, the incarnate God,
Jesus Christ, who wants to come and live with us.
Yes on Christmas. And then continuing all the way through
the Christmas season up till February. Second, the feast of
the presentation, but the rest of our lives. What is
(27:13):
it in your home, in your heart, in your life
that needs to be removed because it causes pain?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
To Christ?
Speaker 3 (27:21):
It's a sin, an addiction, an unforgiveness, a woundedness that
you won't let him heal. Christ wants you to kind
of use this type of advent as an examination of.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Conscience, be shaken awake.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
What is it that ooh, you don't want around that tiny,
innocent gift of the Christ Child. What is it that
you've promised to the Lord that you haven't fulfilled? What
is it that you've become lukewarm in that you can rearrange?
Speaker 6 (27:55):
And what can you do that is extra?
Speaker 3 (27:57):
What is the Lord calling you? You know, maybe you
tell ten percent a month. Maybe the Lord is putting.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Before you someone with a great need and you're being
stingy in your heart.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
What is he asking you to do more for his
poor right or for the Church? Is ther need at
your perish Secondly, we're call during advent to integrity and authenticity.
Right after Thanksgiving, people take down your Thanksgiving decorations and
put up their Christmas and I purposefully try to have
(28:30):
a time of silence in my home, of emptiness, of
just a little bit of purple. Right, because Christ comes
as the naked christ Child, and He wants to enter
our hearts in nakedness. He wants us to be authentic,
and to have integrity and authenticity, you have to take
(28:53):
off the makeup, take off the mask, and to let
Christ really look at you.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
As you are, to not put a twist on something,
to not be trying.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
To make yourself look better, right, or to be important,
but to be that naked child in the arms of
a father. To live authentically, which means to step naked
in the path that the Lord is asked of you,
so that when people look at your lives they see truth,
(29:24):
which is the truth about God and the truth of you.
Our lady is the most wonderful example of somebody who
lived authenticity. She was immaculate. We celebrated that feasts yesterday
of the Immaculate Conception, which means there was nothing false
in her and nothing dirty, nothing blocking the grace of God,
which is what made her so pure.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
And holy and beautiful. And that's what we're called to live.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
In authenticity, the reality of who we are, in our
gifts and our our desires and all that, and then
on our failing send in our stresses, and to hand
that to the Lord.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Right to be people who live what we speak more
than we speak about it.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Right to be people of the of service more than
people of the word. Number three an advent. We're called
to confess and proclaim our faith. Right, there's a lot
of fun Christmas things going on. It's awesome, I say,
take part in it. I think there's such a lack
(30:34):
of innocence in the world. Christmas kind of calls everyone
to that innocence and that childlikeness of heart.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
And yet don't stop with just the secular.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
You know, there's nothing wrong with Santa Claus and all
of that, but take it deeper. My mom always had
a beautiful statue she put up of Santa Claus kneeling
at the manger. Right, even Santa serves God as his king.
So proclaim the faith in how you interact with Christmas.
(31:11):
You know, make sure that those who encounter you know
that you are preparing for the coming of Baby Jesus
and that he is the center of your world. And
respond to God with reverence and awe. God is going
to be dropping these little beautiful graces on you to
(31:32):
prepare you for Christmas. And if you don't stop in
silence and in waiting and receive them, then you'll miss them.
Would we respond to God and his.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Gifts with gratitude, with reverence and with awe.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
It opens our hearts up to receive and absorb those
graces in full. So in advent we remember how our lady,
you know, was surprised at the gift of the Annunciation,
and we read about the visitation. We think of all
those moments of her preparing with Joseph for Jesus coming,
you know, the swadling clothes, she prepared, all of that right,
(32:12):
and God is going to be giving you these little
drops of grace this advent.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Respond to them with reverence and awe. Right, when you
light your Advent wreath, whether it be daily or once.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
A week, take a moment when you light that candle
to remember that Christ is our light right and he's.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Coming into the world, and just absorb that grace for
a moment. This is all about his life and his
life in solitary confinement. Father Alfred delp eventually made his
(32:56):
final vows.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
When he was in the prison, he was so sad
that he was imprisoned, and they smuggled in permission from his.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Superiors, and actually one of the guards was a witness
of it.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
And there were some women that served him in smuggling
clean clothes and things, and they would hide what he
needed to say Mass in that right, and they would
try to torture him by leaving the light on day
and night and watching him, and he lived, and then
(33:29):
the interrogation, and they would beat him to a pulp sometimes,
but he would never betray people. To live for a
longing of Christ in the midst of such suffering, and
to be have your faith grow instead of diminish is
a heroic grace given by God.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
But instead of being intimidated.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Away from his vocation, he went forward during imprisonment, and
he embraced whatever the life of a priest would look
like to him, and even if that meant a great persecution.
Right in nineteen forty one, before he was imprisoned, he
(34:13):
preached a beautiful homily about the different ways that we
are called to.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Pour out ourselves for Christ. And in some ways.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
During advent we are preparing. It's what did Saint John
the Baptist say, make way for the coming of the Lord.
We're preparing ourselves for martyrdom. We're emptying ourselves so that
not that we will bear great fruit, or we will
so the Christ Child can be laid within us. The
way that the Christ Child was given to our lady
and became her whole identity, her whole life centered around
(34:49):
him eternally, right, not just for the years he was little,
her whole being conformed to her role as being the
Mother of God. And so we're preparing the way during
advent for a martyrdom.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Right.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
What is a martyrdom. It's a witness. It's one who
gives up their own life for Christ. And we're all
called to have a martyr's heart, right, We're all called
to be that mother martyr.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
It's really beautiful.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
A few weeks ago I actually woke up with a
dream of my own martyrdom, which was strange because I
don't think about that. But I remembered years ago when
the Lord said, we must live every day with a
martyr's heart, right, emptying yourself out for others. Well, I
went to work and one of the little five year
(35:43):
old boys I take care of in the just out
of the blue, said to me, you know, Mary, you
love God a lot, and that's why you're going to
be that special person for him someday. And I said,
a special person. What do you mean special person? And
he said, well, one that teaches other people about God.
(36:07):
And I said like a missionary and he said no.
And I said, like a doctor, because he knew I
get my doctorate.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
We had talked about that, and he said no.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
And I said, like a saint, because we were talking
about how we're all called to be saints. He goes, no,
it's that m word. Oh, a martyr.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
You're going to be a martyr someday. But remember you're
a mother martyr. You're a mama martyr.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
And I came home and reflected on it. I said,
that's so odd. I just had a dream last night
about that. What was the Lord saying to me at
the beginning of Edva. We're all called to be that
mother martyrs, called to follow our lady who was the
first martyr. Look at all the swords in her heart,
how she suffered and emptied herself out, poured her own
(36:53):
blood out so that Christ could have a heart and
a blood and a womb to surround him. Right, she
gave all of herself, all of our Dna into Christ,
all of her love, all of her attention, and that's
why she's the Queen of martyrs.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
She emptied herself out so.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
That Christ could be laid in her heart right, so
that she could be the major for which people ate
the bread of life. And we're called, not just me,
all of us to do the same thing as a mother,
to prepare our hearts like our lady did. Right, even
if you're a man, it's really incredible because our.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Lady received Christ into her own womb.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
But both men and women we receive Christ is body, blood, soulen,
divinity beating in his heart in the Eucharist every time
we go to Mass and receive communion.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
So in that way, you're called to receive and.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
Become that same tabernacle of Christ that the Mother of
God was. To do that, you have to prepare yourself
during advent to be a martyr. You have to empty
yourself out and to bleed yourself out so that the
Christ Child can be laid within you, not just for
a few weeks, forever, so that you are living and
(38:16):
dying for Christ. Father Alfred deut really understood this. He
preached about the symbolism of a blessed candle like we
have here.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
He said, a.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
Blessed candle gives light at the cost of their own substance.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Right, we're all called to not only.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Light a candle up, but to become a candle. My
dad makes fun of me because I do too much
and I can't keep up right between work and the
foundation and prayer and foster babies and helping all these people.
He's like, marry your burden the wick at both ends.
You know what, they say, You're gonna burn out?
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Is it really that bad?
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Right, we're all called this, Father Alfred delp said, to
be like a blessed candle that gives light to the
world at the cost of their own substance. Right again,
he speaks about how we're all called to fulfill the
vocation of a grain of wheat that's called that falls
(39:27):
to the ground and dies to bear fruit, to become
a martyr with a motherly heart for the Christ Child.
We're called to be a grain of wheat to be
poured out extravagantly, not miserlyly. Oh you know, I helped
this person, so I'm not helping them, right. Or I
(39:49):
donated this amount of money, so the rest goes in
the bank so I can have another great vacation or
buy another house, or whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
That you like to spend your money on.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
You know, i' already visited my mom at Thanksgiving? Do
I really have to go back during You know, that's
a miserly heart.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
We're called to be a grain of.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
Wheat that gives extravagantly, that gives everything always right, to
be sacrificed, to give oneself, even unto death, to shine
a light from one's very substance for the benefit of others,
to be a light that enlightens the nation's right. We
(40:30):
do that by entering into this martyrdom during Lent Advent,
so that the Christ Child can be placed within.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Our newly prepared heart.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Shortly before his execution, Father Delp assured his friends that
his life would be.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Sacrificed and not destroyed. He knew this and he lived it.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
He said, it's the time of sowing and not of harvesting.
God is sowing, and one day he will harvest again.
I will try to do one thing. I will try
at least to be a fruitful and healthy seed falling
into the soil and into the Lord God's hands. In
(41:13):
our world today, it's everything is productivity based.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
People do things to see a result. And really, what
we're called to do, is Christians.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
Is to do God's will because it's God's will, and
to leave the fruit and the rest of everything to him.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Right, We're called to be prudent stewards of his gifts.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
And yet, you know, when I look at my life
in Russia, I was going through some old pictures, what I.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
Did was nothing.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
I stood there as a candle being burned. Right.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
I brought just that presence of Christ and his love
to a barren desert land. There isn't a whole lot
of tangible fruit left as to what Mary Koskin did there. Right,
I still think it was my greatest mission, because we're
just called to be good seed. We're called to just
(42:08):
allow God to show us wherever he wants, and then
to trust that he will bear fruit, and he will
bear fruit later. Jesus is bearing fruit in Russia through
the presence I was there twenty years ago, through the
missionaries who are there now that I have no contact with.
(42:28):
We're called to be faithful, like mother Teresa said, not successful,
and you know that could be true in your own family.
Sometimes parents are like, you know, you know, is this
really helping my children? I don't see a difference, or
my older ones left the church or thinks. God calls
you to be good seed, He inspires you on how
to parent. You're called to do all.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
That, and then you have to trust him.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
And whether or not that seed takes hold and bears
fruit is in his hands. And who will harvest that
in the heart of your child might be someone long
after you're gone, but there's an element of trust.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
We're all called to just die every day and to
allow the.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Christ Child to increase within us and in the places
where we lay his fruit, and to leave it in
his hands when we're blind to that. I'm sure Father
Alfred Delp had no idea a book would be published.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
By Ignacious Press on his spirituality for Edvan.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
He just wrote on these little tiny slips of paper
and smuggled them out. Somebody else gathered put them together,
wrote these reflections and published it.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
And now you're bearing the fruit. We're all called to
just do our little part.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
And to trust that even like Saint Bernard of Clervaux
always said, if we're loving God and doing his will,
just for the sake of loving and doing his will,
it's enough.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
Lastly, here I want to share some specific.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
Specific reflections that he gave to us that were written
in the Tagol prison in Berlin. Oh, it was December
nineteen forty four. It was right before he was killed.
He must have been killed, I guess before the turn
of the year.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
I forget when.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Maybe right after Christmas or no, he was executed February second,
nineteen forty five. Okay, he said, Advent is a time
of being deeply shaken so that man.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Will wake up to himself.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
The prerequisite for fulfilled advent is a renunciation of the
arrogant gestures and tempting dreams with which and in which
man is always deceiving himself. Thus he compels reality to
use violence to bring him around, violence and much dis
stress and suffering.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
It's taking off that mask.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
It's becoming a living martyr that bleeds for Christ, bleeds
yourself out so that Christ may live in you. Being
shaken awake is entirely appropriate to thoughts and experiences of advent,
but at the same time There is much more to
advent than this. The shaking is what sets up the
(45:25):
secret blessedness of the season and enkindles the inner light
in our hearts. So advent will be blessed with the
promises of the Lord. The shaking, awakening. With these life
merely begins to become capable of advent. It is precisely
in the severity of this awakening, in the helplessness of
(45:49):
coming to consciousness, in the wretchedness of experiencing our limitations,
and the golden threads running between Heaven and Earth during
the season reach us. These are threads that give the
world a hint of the abundance to which it is called,
the abundance of which it is capable. It's a beautiful
(46:10):
image here. We're called to cast the world away, to
enter into that authenticity, that nakedness before God. And He's
throwing these golden threads from heaven down to touch us
during advent, right to draw our attention up to our
eternal goal in heaven. He proposes that during advent we
(46:35):
should reflect on the voice calling to us in the wilderness.
Right blessed is the era that can honestly claim it's
not a desert wilderness. Woe, however, to the era in
which the voices calling in the wilderness had fallen silent.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
In our world, that voices.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
Call in silent, fallen silent, shouted down by the noise
of the day, prohibit or drowned in the intoxication of progress,
restricted and quiet out of fear and cowardice. What has
happened to provetic voices in the world today? The devastation
(47:14):
will soon take over so horrendously on all sides that
the scriptural reference to a desert wilderness will spontaneously occur
to all of us.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
I think still, the calling voices are not yet raising.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Their lamentations and accusation Such John the Baptist, figures forged
by the lightning of mission and vocation, should never.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Be lacking from life. We need the John the Baptists right.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
These are people not who just like the sound of
their own voice, but allowed to say I must decrease,
he must increase, to allow the voice of Christ to
rain through them. While they display an utter humility and
purity of heart and of love. These voices are led
(48:07):
by their hearts, and that is why their vision is
so keen and their judgment so incorruptible. John pull the
second was one of those. They do not call for
the sake of calling, or to hear their own voice.
Although they themselves are excluded from the small intimate circle
(48:28):
in the foreground. They might not be the most popular
or all of that. They do not call because they envy.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Men such pleasant earthly hours.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
They have the great consolation that one can know only
after having stepped beyond the deepest and most extreme limits
of existence. These voices that must speak to the world
get their reward in Christ alone. They call out blessing
and salvation. They call man to face his last chain,
(49:00):
because they already feel the ground trembling and the timbers creaking,
and they see the steadfast mountains deeply quaking, and the
stars of heaven dangling insecurely. They call man to the
potential of averting the spreading wilderness which is about to
fall upon him and crush him by means of the
(49:21):
greater strength of a converted heart. Oh God, modern man
knows once again, in a very practical sense, what it
means to clear away rubble and make paths straight again.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
He will have to know it and do it for
long years to come.
Speaker 3 (49:41):
May the calling voices the prophetic John the Baptists indeed
ring out, pointing out the wilderness, and spiritually overcoming the devastation.
May the advent figure of John the Baptist, of the
inexortable messenger and warning prophet in God's name not be
(50:01):
a stranger to the wilderness of our times and our ruins.
Much in our lives is dependent upon figures such as these.
For how shall we hear if no one calls and
the storm of delusion and wild destruction truly overcome us.
Then he goes on to reflect on our lady and
(50:24):
an angel of the Annunciation. He's writing this from solitary confinement,
right before he's killed. I see this year's Advent with
an intensity and presentiment like never before. When I pace
back and forth, if my cell three steps forward, three.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Steps back, hands in irons ahead of me, he.
Speaker 3 (50:47):
Was always chained, always ahead of me, an unknown destiny.
I understand very differently than before those ancient promises of
the coming of the Lord who.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Will redeem us and set us.
Speaker 3 (51:01):
And along with these thoughts comes the memory of the
angel that a good person gave me for Advent two
years ago.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
This angel held a banner rejoice, for the Lord is near.
A bomb destroyed that angel that I had received.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
A bomb also killed the good person who gives it
to me, who gave it to me. The terror of
this time would not be bearable any more than the
terror brought on by our world.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
Situation if we comprehend it.
Speaker 3 (51:35):
Except for this other knowledge that continually encourages us and
sets us straight.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
It's the knowledge of the promises that are being spoken
right in the middle of the terror, and that are valid.
Speaker 3 (51:49):
What go to the wounds of your life, not to
the happy Christmas times, Go to the struggles in the
darkness those places, and ask the Lord, what are the
promises that you're making to me here?
Speaker 2 (52:07):
It is also.
Speaker 3 (52:08):
Knowledge of the quiet angels of annunciation, who speak their
message of blessing into the distress, who scatter their seeds
of the blessing that will begin to grow even in
the middle of the night. These are not yet the
loud angels of public jubilation and fulfillment. These angels are
(52:30):
of advent. What are the angels planting in your heart
in the night of advent right now that God wants
to give to you? What are those seeds? What are
the plans that He has for you?
Speaker 2 (52:45):
What is He calling you to do?
Speaker 3 (52:48):
Silently and unnoticed, they come into private rooms and appear
before our hearts.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
As they did long ago.
Speaker 3 (52:55):
Silently, these angels bring the questions of God and proclaim
to us the miracles.
Speaker 2 (53:01):
Of God, with whom nothing is impossible.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
Advent, despite all eagerness, is a time of refuge because
it has received a message. If people know nothing about
the message and the promises anymore, if they only experience
the four walls and the prison windows of their gray
days and no longer perceive the quiet footsteps of the
announcing angels, If the angels murmured word does not simultaneously
(53:32):
shake us to the depths and lift our souls that
it's over for us.
Speaker 2 (53:38):
You have to see beyond the.
Speaker 3 (53:39):
Walls of whatever is imprisoning you, then we are living
wasted time. We're dead, long before anybody else does anything
evil to us. To believe in the golden seeds of God,
that the angels are scattered and continue to offer an
open heart are the first things that we must do
(54:02):
with our lives, And the next is to go through
these gray days as announcing messengers ourselves. So much courage
needs strengthening. So much despair needs comforting, so much hardship
needs a gentle hand and an illuminating interpretation. So much
(54:24):
loneliness cries out for a liberating word. So much loss
and pain seek a spiritual meaning. God's messengers know about
the blessing that the Lord is planted even within these
historic times. To wait in faith for the fruitfulness of
the silent earth and for the abundance of the coming harvest,
(54:45):
needs to understand the world, even this world in advent.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
To wait in faith no longer because we trust.
Speaker 3 (54:55):
The earth or the stars, or our temperament and good current,
but to wait because we have perceived God's messages, and
we know about his announcing angels. We've even encountered one.
And now he leads us to reflect on the blessed Mother.
(55:16):
She is the most comforting figure of advent. That the
angel's message found her heart ready, and the word became flesh,
and in the holy room of her motherly heart, the
earth grew far beyond its limitations into the human divine sphere.
These are the holiest comforts of advent. What used to
(55:38):
us are the thought and lived experience of our affliction.
If no bridge is built to the other's shore. How
can the terror and chaos and confusion help us if
no light flares up to equal and overcome the darkness.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
What used to us is the.
Speaker 3 (55:57):
Shivering from cold and hardship, in which the world is
freezing to death the more it loses, loses and deadens
itself deep down inside. If we do not, at the
same time experience that grace which is mightier than the
danger and the lostness. That God would become a mother's son,
(56:21):
and that a woman would walk upon this earth, her
body consecrated as a holy temple and tabernacle for God
is truly the Earth's culmination and the fulfillment of its expectation.
The comfort of advent shines forth in so many various
ways from this hidden figure of the blessed and waiting Mary. Oh,
(56:45):
that this was granted to the earth to bring forth
such fruit, that the world was permitted to enter into
the presence of God through the sheltering warmth, as well
as the helpful and reliable patronage of her motherly heart.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
The gray horizons must light up.
Speaker 3 (57:06):
Only the foreground is screaming so loudly and penetratingly. Farther
back where it has to do with things that really count.
The situation is already changing. The woman has conceived the child,
sheltered him under her heart, and has given birth to
her son.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
The world has come under a different law. All these
are not merely.
Speaker 3 (57:28):
One time historical events upon which our salvation rests. They
are simultaneously the model figures and events that announce to
us the new order of things, of life, of our existence.
We have to remember courageously today that the blessed Woman
(57:48):
of Nazareth is one of these illuminating figures. At a
deeper level of being. Even our times and our destiny
bear the blessing and the mystery of God. The most
important thing is to wait, to be able to wait
until their hour comes. Therefore, let us kneel down and
(58:14):
pray for the threefold blessing and the threefold consecration of advent.
Speaker 2 (58:22):
Let us pray for the.
Speaker 3 (58:24):
Openness and willingness to hear the warning of the prophets
of the Lord, and to overcome the devastation of life
through conversion of.
Speaker 2 (58:33):
Our own heart.
Speaker 3 (58:34):
Let us not shun and suppress the earnest words of
the calling voices or those who are our executioners today
may be our accusers once again tomorrow. Sorry, let us
not shun and suppress the earnest words of the calling voices,
or those who are our executioners today may be our
(58:57):
accusers once again tomorrow because we silence the truth.
Speaker 2 (59:04):
Once again, Let us.
Speaker 3 (59:05):
Kneel down and pray for keen eyes capable of seeing
God's messengers of annunciation, for vigilant hearts wise enough to
perceive the words of the promise. The world is more
than its burden. Life is more than the sum of
its gray days. The golden threads of the genuine reality
(59:26):
are already shining through everywhere. Let us know this, and
let us ourselves be comforting messengers. Hope grows through the
one who is himself a person of the hope and
of the promise. One more time, we want to kneel
and pray for faith in life's motherly consecration in the
(59:47):
figure of.
Speaker 2 (59:48):
The blessed woman from Nazareth.
Speaker 3 (59:51):
Already today and for always, life is torn away from
the cruel and merciless powers.
Speaker 2 (59:58):
Let us be patient and.
Speaker 3 (59:59):
Wait with an advent, waiting for the hour in which
it pleases the Lord to appear new even during this night,
as fruit and mystery of this time advent is a
time of the promise, not yet the fulfillment.
Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
We are all still standing in the middle of the
whole thing, in.
Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
The logical relentlessness and in inevitability of destiny. To captive eyes,
it still appears that the ultimate throw of the dice, indeed,
will be cast here below, in this valley, on these battlefields,
in these camps, prisons and cellars. One keeping vigil though,
(01:00:46):
senses that other powers at work are at work, and
they can await that coming hour.
Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
The sounds of.
Speaker 3 (01:00:55):
Devastation and destruction, the cries of self importance and eirance,
the weeping of despair and powerlessness.
Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
Still is filling the world.
Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
Yet, standing silently all along the horizon are the eternal realities,
with their age old longing. The first gentle light of
the glorious abundance to come is already shining above them.
From out there, the first sounds are ringing out, like
the shepherd's flutes and a boy's choir singing. They do
(01:01:28):
not yet form a song or a melody. It's still
too far off, and only the first announcement is made.
Still it's happening. This is today and tomorrow the angels
will relate loudly and jubilantly what has happened, and we
will know it will be blessed if we have believed
(01:01:50):
and trusted in Advent. So we thank Father Alfred delp
for these reflections, and add that that came from his
solitary confinement in the German prison before he was murdered.
We asked him to intercede for us from heaven to
prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ, to be
(01:02:13):
shaken awake, to bleed as martyrs of love, for the
Christ Child to become pregnant with the Little Child of Bethlehem,
and to take him as a great light out to
the world. We pray for the grace to decrease and
allow the Lord to increase. We pray for the grace
(01:02:35):
to not look at the fruit of our lives, but
instead the integrity of just loving and doing the will
of God for its own sake, and trusting for the
Lord to bear the fruit.
Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
We ask not only to plant seeds.
Speaker 3 (01:02:51):
In the world, but become that golden seed that dies,
the candle that's blessed and who is burnt out.
Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
By shedding the light of Christ into the world.
Speaker 3 (01:03:04):
We ask our Lady to intercede and to Moldust according
to her most immaculate heart, so that we will be
made worthy to receive Christ, not only at Christmas, but
at the end of all time.
Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
Glory be to the Father and to the Son, and
to the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever
shall be world without under Anne Ali Lujah.
Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
Hello, God's beloved.
Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
I'm Annabel Moseley, author, professor of theology and host of
Then Sings My Soul and Destination Sainthood on WCAT Radio.
I invite you to listen in and find inspiration along
this sacred journey. We're traveling together to make our lives
a masterpiece and with God's grace, become saints. Join me
(01:04:00):
Bill Moseley for Then Sings My Song and Destination Sainthood
on WCAT Radio.
Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
God bless you. Remember you are never alone. God is
always with you.
Speaker 4 (01:04:17):
Thank you for listening to a production of WCAT Radio.
Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
Please join us in our mission of evangelization, and don't
forget Love lifts up where knowledge takes flight.
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