From Fr. Delp's Diary, 31 December 1944

Spiritually we seem to be in an enormous vacuum. Humanly speaking there is the same burning question - what is the point of it all? And in the end even the question sticks in one's throat. Scarcely anyone can see, or even guess at, the connection between the corpse-strewn battlefields, the heaps of rubble we live in and the collapse of the spiritual cosmos of our views and principles, the tattered residue of our moral and religious convictions as revealed by our behavior. And even if the connection were fully understood it would be only a matter for academic interest, data to be noted and listed. No one would be shocked or deduce from the facts a need for reformation. We have already travelled so far in our progress toward anarchy and nihilism....

That England is on the down grade even I am beginning to believe. The English have lost their keenness and their spiritual gifts; the philosophy of materialism has eaten into England's bones and paralyzed the muscles of her heart. The English still have great traditions and imposing forms and gestures; but what kind of people are they? The social problem has been overlooked in England - and also the problem of youth and the problem of America and of spiritual questions which can all too easily masquerade as cultural or political questions.

From Fr. Delp's Diary, 29 December 1944

Far more than a civilization or a rich heritage was lost when the universal order went the way of medieval and ancient civilizations.  Western humanity today is spiritually homeless, naked and exposed.  The moment we start to be anything beyond "one of the masses" we become terribly aware of that isolation which has always encompassed the great.  We realize our homelessness and our exposure.  So we set to work to build ourselves some sort of house and shelter.  Our ancestors, those among them who were really great, could have left us a legacy much more helpful for our progress.  We can only account for the contorted thought of men like Paracelsus or Böhme on the grounds that life's insufferable loneliness and lack of design forced them to build a shelter for themselves.  And although it is such a self-willed and distorted and angular structure it still has the marks of painstaking care and trouble and in that must command our respect.  Goethe had rather more success; his instinct was surer and it led him to guess at some of nature's more important designs.  Moreover, he had a good - thought not in all respects dependable - master whose ideas he copied to a very large extent.

Every now and then someone comes along and tries to impose his own plan on the rest of the world, either because he knows he has stumbled on a universal need or because he thinks he has and overestimates his own infallibility.  Such people will never lack followers since so many people long for a well-founded communal home to which they can feel they "belong."  Time after time in the end they come to realize that the shelter offered is not all it purports to be - it cannot keep out the wind and the weather.  And time and time again the deluded seekers conclude they have been taken in by a mountebank; the man probably had no intention of deliberately deceiving but he was nevertheless a charlatan misleading himself and others.

*

It is quite remarkable.  Since Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve I have become almost light-heartedly confident although nothing outwardly has changed.  Somewhere within me ice has been melted by the prayer for love and life - I cannot tell on what plane.  There is nothing tangible to show for it and yet I am in good heart and my thoughts soar.  Of course the pendulum will swing back and there will be other moods - the sort that made St. Peter tremble at the wind and the waves.

*

I have a great yearning to talk with a few well-loved friends... when?

Fr. Delp on the Fourth Sunday of Advent: The Final Hour of Darkness

Fr. Alfred Delp's meditation for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, written in jail while he awaited trial at the hands of the Nazis, is considerably longer than that for the First Sunday, making it impractical to reproduce in full. Nevertheless, the first paragraph alone is worth quoting, quivering as it does with the anticipation of Christmas, made all the more striking by the personal circumstances of Fr. Delp's life.

What is true of the Advent prayers applies also to Advent in life. Before the curtain rises and the scene is disclosed, stretching into infinity, expectation mounts in a crescendo of excitement. Our confidence is well founded and so is the suspense of waiting because the promise is already fulfilled and its truth demonstrated. Day triumphs and the darkness shrinks back into nothingness - like the shadows in the wings when the stage is set as a temple of light. On the forth Sunday in Advent the acute awareness of shrouded mystery is deepening for the final hour of darkness that heralds the dawn. There is an intense awareness of captivity, of crippling disability and despair, but it is already shot through with a premonition of divine grace - the premonition that will soon become certainty.

Alfred Delp on the Meaning of Advent (and Life)

On 28 July 1944 the German Jesuit Alfred Delp was arrested by the Nazis for his links to the German Resistance movement, some members of which had just attempted to assassinate Hitler in the July 20 plot. While in prison, he kept a diary and wrote reflections, most notably on Advent and Christmas.

In his sermon for the First Sunday of Advent, Delp points out that even if humanity did not need salvation from sin, our own longing for transcendent fulfillment would exceed anything of which we are capable on our own and thus we would still need God. But this is not our circumstance, for the world is clearly torn by sin and violence in countless forms.

Amidst our frustrations and suffering, Delp reminds us that our longing for something better is not simply a self-diagnosis of our problem, a reminder of what we do not have, but - in the mystery of God - this longing itself brings us closer to God, who is our fulfillment. But he warns us: "To try to bring the quest to an ultimate conclusion" by our own efforts is folly. God accomplishes this work. Moreover, we can neither hurry the process nor postpone it "to suit our convenience." It must happen in God's time.

Here is the full text. If the tone is heavy, it is because Delp beheld his nation on the verge of destruction, itself the author of horrendous bloodletting, while his own fate was unknown, as he awaited trial. But amidst such gloom, he also saw hope.

Unless we have been shocked to our depths at ourselves and the things we are capable of, as well as at the failing of humanity as a whole, we cannot possibly understand the full import of Advent.

If the whole message of the coming of God, of the day of salvation, of approaching redemption, is to seem more than a divinely inspired legend or a bit of poetic fiction two things much be accepted unreservedly.

First, that life is both powerless and futile in so far as by itself it has neither purpose nor fulfillment. It is powerless and futile within its own range of existence and also as a consequence of sin. To this must be added the rider that life clearly demands both purpose and fulfillment.

Secondly, it must be recognized that it is God's alliance with humanity, his being on our side, ranging himself with us, that corrects this state of meaningless futility. It is necessary to be conscious of God's decision to enlarge the boundaries of his own supreme existence by condescending to share ours for the overcoming of sin.

It follows that life, fundamentally, is a continuous Advent; hunger and thirst and awareness of lack involve movement toward fulfillment. But this also means that in this progress toward fulfillment humanity is vulnerable; we are perpetually moving toward, and are capable of receiving, the ultimate revelation with all the pain inseparable from that achievement.

While time lasts there can be no end to it all and to try to bring the quest to an ultimate conclusion is one of the illusory temptations to which human nature is exposed. In fact hunger and thirst and wandering in the wilderness and perpetual rescue by a sort of life-line are all part of the ordinary hazards of human existence.

God's promises are given to meet and deal with all these contingencies - not merely to satisfy human arrogance and conceit. All we have to rely on is the fact that these promises have been given and that they will be kept. We are bound to depend on them - "the truth shall set you free." That is the ultimate theme of life. All else is mere explanation, compromise, application, and then to get away from ourselves, back to him. Any attempt to live by other principles is bound to fail - it is a living lie. This is the mistake we have made as a race and as a nation and are now paying for so bitterly. We have committed an unpardonable sin against our own being and the only way to correct it is through an existential reverse - back again to truth.

But this reverse, this return, must be made now.

The threatening dangers of our sins. Recognizing the truth of existence and loosening the stranglehold of this error are not matters that can be postponed to suit our convenience. They call for immediate action because untruth is both dangerous and destructive. It has already rent our souls, destroyed our people, laid waste our land and our cities; it has already caused another generation to bleed to death.

None that wait on thee shall be confounded. We must recognize and acknowledge the hunger and thirst for satisfaction outside ourselves. After all it is not a case of waiting for something that may not happen. We have the comforting assurance of all those who wait knowing that the one they expect is already on the way.

If we are terrified by the dawning realization of our true condition, that error is completely calmed by the certain knowledge that God is on the way and actually approaching. Our fate, no matter how much it may be entwined with the inescapable logic of circumstance, is still nothing more than the way to God, the way the Lord has chosen for the ultimate consummation of his purpose, for his permanent ends. Lift up your heads because your redemption is at hand.

Just as falsehood entered the world through the heart and destroyed it, so truth begins its healing work there.

Light the candles quietly, such candles as you possess, wherever you are. They are the appropriate symbol for all that must happen in Advent if we are to live.

From Alfred Delp, SJ: Prison Writings, with introduction by Thomas Merton (Orbis, 2004), pp. 22-24.

Muslims in the GOP

Is this the face of a conservative Muslim politician? Turns out, it is. Cemile Giousouf was elected to German's Bundestag (federal parliament) in 2013, the chamber's first Muslim representative of the conservative Christian Democratic Union party. As the Financial Times pointed out at the time, she is an example of a small but growing number of European Muslims who are abandoning the continent's secular left-wing parties because they feel more at home with Christian conservatives. In Britain, Sayeeda Warsi grew up in a Pakistani-British family and was appointed Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party in 2005. Two years later she was created Baroness Warsi and became the youngest member of the House of Lords.

Here in the US, the story is a bit different. It's not that there's a shortage of pro-life, pro-marriage, faith-infused, free trade, limited government, robust national security-minded Muslims out there. The Republican Muslim Coalition and its president, Saba Ahmed, for example, embody just such values. No, the problem is that the likes of Donald Trump and the populist wing of the party seem to be doing their best to alienate such potential voters, as the FT reports. In 2000, George W. Bush won 42% of the American Muslim vote, a hefty piece of a growing pie (and probably one of the Republicans' strongest showings among any minority group). By 2008, 89% of Muslims were voting Democrat.

Back home in Arizona, I frequently voted for Mormons, not because I share all their theological beliefs, but because I found that I shared political and social values with many Mormon candidates. I'd be happy to vote alongside Muslims and for Muslim candidates as well, if only the GOP doesn't drive them all away.

Photo credit: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger.

An Excellent Flag: Crozet, Virginia

I have been known to complain about bad civic heraldry. But today I would like to praise a worthy example.

Crozet, VA is a small unincorporated town of around 6,000 people a few miles west of Charlottesville. It is named for Claudius Crozet, a French engineer who, among other things, served as the first president of the Virginia Military Institute. As the Crozet Gazette explains:

In 1996, looking for symbol for the Crozet community, the Crozet Community Association investigated the family heraldry of the town namesake. Three emblems for the name were discovered in old French heraldry books at the University of Virginia Library, but all were depicted in black and white. For one, the least complex coat-of-arms, there was a description of the emblem’s colors and therefore it was officially adopted by the CCA and stickers and a handful of flags were made. The colors are happily compatible with the American flag. The emblem dates from the 1300s.

This flag has all the attributes of a good flag or coat of arms: it is simple, clear, distinctive, historically grounded, and aesthetically pleasing. Thus, it comes as little surprise that, although Crozet is a small community, its flag is a fairly common sight in the back window of vehicles in the area. I can only hope that more communities follow Crozet's example of using well-designed heraldic symbols to foster civic pride.

English, But Not As You Know It

A couple months ago I read an article on cognitive fitness which encouraged various activities to keep the mind strong and limber: music, exercise, games, acting, and foreign languages, among others.

If you're anything like me, you may lack the time and ability to study a foreign language. But I strongly suspect that many of the same cognitive benefits can come about by working with a different dialect of English. The other day I stumbled upon one: Yola, otherwise known as the Forth and Bargy dialect.

This variant of English was spoken in County Wexford, Ireland. Although it died out in the 19th century, it evolved from Middle English and looks more like the English of Geoffrey Chaucer than modern American English. Those who are interested in the finer workings of pronunciation can find plenty of information online. But for those who simply want to try their hand at reading it, I'd offer the same advice I offer for Chaucer: read it out loud and then just listen to yourself. You might sound like the Swedish Chef from the Muppets, but you may find yourself hearing words that you didn't recognize on the page.

Here's a simple example of Yola, with a modern English translation, that I pulled off Wikipedia:

Ee mýdhe ov Rosslaarè
'Cham góeen to tell thee óa taale at is drúe
Aar is ing Rosslaarè óa mýdhe geoudè an drúe
Shoo wearth ing her haté óa ribbonè at is blúe
An shoo goeth to ee faaythè earchee deie too
Ich meezil bee ing ee faaythè éarchee deie zoo
At ich zee dhicka mýdhe fhó is geoudè an drúe
An ich bee to ishólthè ee mýdhe, ee mýdhe at is drúe
An fhó coome to ee faaythè wi' ribbonè blue
'Chull meezil góe to Rosslaaré earche deie too
to zie thaar ee mydhe wee her ribbonè blúe
An 'chull her estólté vor her ribbonè blúe
ee mýdhe at is lyghtzóm, an well wytheen an drúe
Ich loove ee mýdhe wee ee ribbonè blúe
At coome to ee faaythè éarchee arichè too
Fan 'cham ing ee faaythè éarchee arichè too
To estóthè mýdhe wee ee ribbons blúe

The maiden of Rosslare
I'm going to tell you a tale that is true.
There is in Rosslare a maid good and true.
She wears in her hat a ribbon that is blue
and she goes to the faith every day too.
I myself am in the faith every day so
that I see this maid who is good and true
and I go to meet the maid, the maid that is true
and who comes to the faith with ribbons blue.
I myself will go to Rosslare every day too
to see there the maid with her ribbons blue
And I will meet her for her ribbons blue
the maid that is enlightened and good looking and true.
I love the maid with the ribbons blue
that comes to the faith every morning too
when I'm in the faith every morning too
to meet the maid with the ribbons blue.

If that was too easy, you can find a more challenging text here, along with some modern English.

Those interested in learning a bit more about Yola may enjoy this short video: