Last year in Golden, Colorado

I'm going to share another quote today from Fr. Delp's book. It's a very cold day where I live, and the last part of this quote struck me...the idea of the world "freezing to death because it deadens itself deep down inside."

Although at this time of year everyone is talking about good cheer and peace on earth and "JOY", the world at large is shutting out the love, peace and joy of Our Lord and deadening itself to His message. When the world hardens its heart against the cries of the needy, the elderly, the infants, the suffering, and instead only hears its own selfish greed for more money and power, then the world is truly freezing to death, in a more real sense than by the thermometer.

Let us warm the world by "building a bridge to the other shore and experience that grace" as Fr. Delp recommends:

"The Blessed Mother 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 use to us are the thought and lived experience of our affliction, if no bridge is built to the other shore? How can the terror of chaos and confusion help us, if no light flares up to equal and overcome the darkness? What use to us is this shivering from cold and hardship, in which the world is freezing to death the more it 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?"

~ Fr. Alfred Delp, SJ, writing from his prison in Nazi Germany.