Staying Awake and Being Prepared
- FATHER ALFRED DELP, S.J.
We apprehend and understand Advent as the encounter of man with, the journey of man toward, the Ultimate, toward the Absolute, toward the Lord God.
Standing in the presence of the Last Things, in the presence of the Ultimate, resulted in — and results in — a peculiar knowledge of ourselves. From this holy place of encounter we have perceived two Advent messages.
Here is the first message: Man facing the Ultimate must be someone in a state of being shaken, with an alert, awakened heart that does not freeze up, does not become weary, or cramped, or deadened, but sees things as they are. Someone facing the Ultimate will not be apathetic, not just accept everything simply because it is, and because it does not change, and because it goes on and on, and because it is happening everywhere.
And that brings us to the second message, the message of authenticity, which says: In the presence of God, the Absolute Ultimate, nothing counts but that which is real. Man can pass the test of the last days only without pathos, without cramps, without lies, without masks. This requires an honesty of being that has measured itself against the Ultimate, an honesty of being that in the presence of the Ultimate, passes the test.
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Acknowledgement
Father Alfred Delp, S.J. "Staying Awake and Being Prepared." from Advent of the Heart: Seasonal Sermons and Prison Writings (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2006).
Reprinted with permission from Ignatius Press.
This excerpt appeared in Magnificat in November 2016.
The Author
Father Alfred Delp, S.J. (1907-1945) was a German Jesuit priest and a philosopher of the German Resistance. Part of the inner Kreisau Circle resistance group, he is considered a significant figure in Catholic resistance to Nazism. Implicated in the failed 1944 July Plot to overthrow the Nazi Dictator Adolf Hitler, Delp was arrested, and sentenced to death. He was executed in 1945. Father Delp is the author of Advent Of The Heart, and Prison Writings.
