Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life united faith, prayer, writing and action. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Bonhoeffer immediately joined the Confessing Church, a center of Protestant resistance. He pastored two churches in London, led a seminary and wrote two books, including “The Cost of Discipleship.” He was arrested in 1943 in a plot against Hitler, and executed two years later. He taught that discipleship can cost you your life, and he paid with his life. http://dailyoffice.org/2014/04/09/morning-prayer-4-9-14-dietrich-bonhoeffer-theologian-and-martyr-1945/
A prayer by Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
God of the day and of the night, in me there is darkness, but with you there is light. I am alone, but you will not leave me. I am weak, but you will come to my help. I am restless, but you are my peace. I am in haste, but you are the God of infinite patience. I am confused and lost, but you are eternal wisdom and you direct my path; now and for ever. Amen
Qoutes of Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.”
“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.” ― Letters and Papers from Prison
“Music... will help dissolve your perplexities and purify your character and sensibilities, and in time of care and sorrow, will keep a fountain of joy alive in you.”
“Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God's will.”
“When all is said and done, the life of faith is nothing if not an unending struggle of the spirit with every available weapon against the flesh.”
“Jesus himself did not try to convert the two thieves on the cross; he waited until one of them turned to him.”
“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”
“In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.”
“There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it. It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve -- even in pain -- the authentic relationship. Furthermore, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain.”
“There is meaning in every journey that is unknown to the traveler.”
“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.”
“I discovered later, and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world. That, I think, is faith.”
“I'm still discovering, right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing, we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God.”
“In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.”
http://dailyoffice.org/2014/04/09/morning-prayer-4-9-14-dietrich-bonhoeffer-theologian-and-martyr-1945/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoffer
http://satucket.com/lectionary/DBonhoeffer.htm
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