Alfred Delp

1907-1945 20th century

Adoration that stays standing when everything else is taken away.

Who was Alfred Delp?

A German Jesuit, member of the Kreisau Circle that was planning a Germany after Hitler. Arrested after the July 1944 plot, he wrote his meditations in prison with manacled hands, on scraps of paper smuggled out in his laundry. He pronounced his final vows in his cell, and was hanged at Plötzensee on 2 February 1945.

In their own words

Bread is important, freedom is more important, but most important of all is unbroken fidelity and unbetrayed adoration.

Prison Writings, Tegel, 1944-1945

There is perhaps nothing we modern people need more than to be genuinely shaken up.

Advent meditation, Tegel prison, December 1944

Let us trust life, because we do not have to live it alone: God lives it with us.

Meditation for Christmas Eve 1944 (Gesammelte Schriften IV)