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Saturday, August 14, 2010

Prayer: Alfred Delp, S.J. (martyr at the hands of Nazi Germany)

About the 15th of August I was on the verge of despair. I was brutally beaten and then returned to my cell late in the evening. The guards accompanying me left me with these words: “You won’t sleep tonight. You can pray as much as you wish but no God or angel will come to deliver you. We, however, will sleep well and early tomorrow will be ready to work on you with renewed strength.”

How I recall that night when I asked God for death, for I could no longer continue. I found myself incapable of carrying such a cross and standing up against such violence. All night I struggled with God and wept before Him in my misery. But it was not yet morning when a deep peace enveloped me – light, courage, and great strength let me clearly see my duty, ‘to endure,’ and it brought me this hope, ‘you will endure.’

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