A
selection of prison meditations
by
Alfred Delp
Alfred
Delp was a German member of the Society of Jesus, who was executed for
his resistance to the Nazi regime.
Alfred
Delp was born in Mannheim, Germany, to a Catholic mother and a Protestant
father. Although baptized Catholic, he was raised and confirmed a Lutheran.
At the age of 14 he left the Lutheran church and was confirmed as a Roman
Catholic. In his later life Delp was a fervent promoter of better relations
between the churches.
Delp
joined the Jesuits in 1926. In the next 10 years he continued his studies
and worked with German youth, made more difficult after 1933 with the interference
of the Nazi regime. Delp was ordained in 1937.
Unable
for political reasons to continue his studies, Delp worked on the editorial
staff of the Jesuit publication Stimmen der Zeit (Voice of the Times),
until it was suppressed in 1941. He then was assigned as rector of St.
Georg Church in Munich. Delp secretly used his position to help Jews escape
to Switzerland.
Concerned
with the future of Germany, Delp joined the Kreisau Circle, a group that
worked to design a new social order. He was arrested with other members
of the circle after the attempted assassination of Hitler in 1944. After
suffering brutal treatment and torture, Delp was brought to trial. While
he knew nothing of the attempted assassination, the Gestapo decided to
hang him for high treason.
Delp
was offered his freedom if he would renounce the Jesuits. He refused and
was hanged February 2, 1945. His body was cremated and his ashes spread
on an unknown field.
While
his physical remains disappeared, Alfred Delp left behind letters smuggled
out of prison. They reveal a man of courage who told the prison chaplain
accompanying him to his death, “In half an hour, I’ll know more than you
do.”
[biographical
source: IgnatianSpirituality.com]
[Selection
from The Prison Meditations of Father Alfred Delp, with an Introduction
by Thomas Merton (New York: Herder and Herder, 1963)] |
