To Marianne Hapig and Marianne Punder: [caption id="attachment_569" align="alignleft" width="215"] Delp hiking in the mountains with a group of students (early 1940s)[/caption] That [the surprise visit from Tattenbach, allowing Delp to make his final vows on December 8] was a blessing, you good people. I wouldn’t have...
On December 8, 1944, came another turning point in Delp’s life. He had been scheduled to make his final vows as a Jesuit on August 15 (the original date having been postponed by his superiors through a decision-making process that remains confidential). By that date,...
Second Sunday of Advent Delp writes, “The primary condition for a fruitful and rewarding Advent is renunciation, surrender.” During this Advent of 1944 which he spends in Tegel Prison in Berlin, manacled and in isolation, he comes back again and again to this word: surrender--only God...
December 1944 To Marianne Hapig and Marianne Punder (the two women bringing laundry and supplies to Delp in prison) Good people, May God reward you greatly for all your goodness and concern. How can I ever make it up to you? Actually, this is sometimes a worry to...
Two days after December’s First Friday came the first Sunday of Advent. Advent was Delp’s favorite season of the Church year. Now, under the most extreme conditions of his life—isolation in a prison cell, his hands in manacles, he begins to ponder the meaning for...
The “dear grey book” that was sent to Delp in his prison cell from Munich contained old favorite prayers, one of which was the Litany of the Sacred Heart. As November drew to a close, he realized that December 1 of 1944 was the First...
The imprisonment is a trial for Delp, but he is also preparing for the trial that will place him in the People's Court. He is also aware that people he knew have gone through their trials and have been executed. In his mind, he goes back...
[caption id="attachment_535" align="alignleft" width="179"] Alfred Delp painted in 1939 by his brother-in-law Fritz Kern, who was killed in Crimea in 1941.[/caption] Delp speaks of being confronted by God and begins to see everything as a sign of God's presence--an unexpected pack of cigarettes, a favorite prayer...
In Alfred Delp's first surviving letters there is an element of self-pity--"How have things come to this terrible state?"--but also a realization that he has been stripped of everything and has been called into the darkness of his own misery. He quotes a psalm in one...
During Alfred Delp's first few weeks in Tegel Prison, Marianne Hapig was able to sweet-talk the prison staff to allow hosts and a small bottle of wine ("Such a small bottle--see?" she said to the head guard) into Delp's cell. The guard grumbled but relented. Delp...