Stephanie’s story demonstrates several aspects of suffering,
communicating with God, and the gift of redemption. But she
emphasizes the role of confession: it brought her to a turning point
in her life.
Contrition begins with sorrow and grief at our wrongdoing, but
it cannot stop there. King David of ancient Israel cried out, “Have
mercy upon me!” Tearing one’s clothes and dressing in sackcloth,
so frequently mentioned in the Bible, are perhaps culturally determined. But the lamentation, weeping, and fasting are more than
symbolic; even today these can be outer signs of deep repentance.
God wants a change of heart, and true remorse involves both honesty and humility. This will include confession, despite the fact that
many Christians today doubt the necessity of confiding one’s
failures to another person. I believe, however, that the power of sin
cannot be broken unless it is exposed in all its blackness. Only then
follow forgiveness and a freeing for the soul.
Here is where Thérèse de Lisieux shines forth with her uncovering in Scripture a new view of the reality of God’s merciful love:
Yes, I feel it; even though I had on my conscience all the sins that
can be committed, I would go, my heart broken with sorrow, and
throw myself into Jesus’ arms, for I know how much he loves the
prodigal child who returns to him. It is not because God, in his
anticipating mercy, has preserved my soul from mortal sin that I
go to him with confidence and love.
All our efforts and striving
will not bring repentance, but only
an attitude of remorse and complete surrender to God’s working in
our lives. My father said there are secrets that only God, in his great
love, knows. To this belongs the mystery of repentance. Dostoyevsky
expresses this powerfully in
The Brothers Karamazov,
through
Father Zossima, a Christ-like figure.
The elder [Father Zossima] had already noticed in the crowd two
glowing eyes fixed upon him. An exhausted, consumptive-looking, though young, peasant woman was gazing at him in silence.
Her eyes besought him, but she seemed afraid to approach.
“What is it, my child?”
“Absolve my soul, Father,” she articulated softly and slowly,
sank on her knees and bowed down at his feet. “I have sinned,
Father. I am afraid of my sin.”
The elder sat down on the lower step. The woman crept
closer to him, still on her knees.
“I am a widow these three years,” she began in a half-whisper, with a sort of shudder. “I had a hard life with my husband.
He was an old man. He used to beat me cruelly. He lay ill; I
thought looking at him, if he were to get well, if he were to get
up again, what then? And then the thought came to me – ”
“Stay!” said the elder, and he put his ear close to her lips.
The woman went on in a low whisper, so that it was almost
impossible to catch anything. She had soon done.
“Three years ago?” asked the elder.
“Three years. At first I didn’t think about it, but now I’ve
begun to be ill, and the thought never leaves me.”
“Have you come from far?”
“Over three hundred miles away.”
“Have you told it in confession?”
“I have confessed it. Twice I have confessed it.”
“Have you been admitted to Communion?”
“Yes. I am afraid. I am afraid to die.”
“Fear nothing and never be afraid; and don’t fret. If only
your penitence fail not, God will forgive all. There is no sin, and
there can be no sin on all the earth, which the Lord will not forgive to the truly repentant! Man cannot commit a sin so great as
to exhaust the infinite love of God. Can there be a sin that would
exceed the love of God? Think only of repentance, continual repentance, but dismiss fear altogether. Believe that God loves you
as you cannot conceive; that he loves you with your sin, in your
sin. It has been said of old that over one repentant sinner there
is more joy in heaven than over ten righteous men.
Go, and fear not. Be not bitter against men. Be not angry if
you are wronged. Forgive the dead man in your heart what
wrong he did you. Be reconciled with him in truth. If you are
penitent, you love. And if you love, you are of God. All things are
atoned for, all things are saved by love. If I, a sinner even as you
are, am tender with you and have pity on you, how much more
will God. Love is such a priceless treasure that you can redeem
the whole world by it, and expiate not only your own sins but the
sins of others.”
Jerome, the fourth-century scholar
and Bible translator, lived
in Rome, spent time as an ascetic in the desert, and founded a
school and monastery in Bethlehem. Near the end of his long life,
he wrote down the following conversation, a touching story of
what God has done, and continues to do, for each one of us.
As often as I look at the place where the Lord is born, my heart
enters into a wondrous conversation with the Child Jesus:
And I say, “Dear Lord Jesus, how you are shivering; how
hard you lie for my sake, for the sake of my redemption. How
can I repay you?”
Then I seem to hear the Child’s answer: “Dear Jerome, I desire nothing but that you shall sing ‘Glory to God in the highest,’
and be content. I shall be even poorer in the Garden of Olives
and on the Holy Cross.”
I speak again, “Dear Jesus, I have to give you something. I
will give you all my money.”
The Child answers, “Heaven and earth already belong to
me. I do not need your money; give it to the poor, and I will accept it as if it were given to me.”
Then I say, “Dear Jesus, I will gladly do so, but I have to give
something to you personally, or I would die of grief.”
The Child answers, “Dear Jerome, since you are so very generous, I will tell you what you should give me. Give me your sins,
your bad conscience, and those things that condemn you.”
I reply, “What will you do with them?”
The Child says, “I will carry them upon my shoulders; that
shall be my sovereignty and glorious deed. I will bear your sin
and take it away.”
Then I begin to weep bitter tears and say, “Little Child, dear
little Child, how deeply you have touched my heart. I thought
you wanted my good deeds, but you want all my evil deeds. Take
what is mine, give to me what is Thine. So I shall be free from sin
and certain of eternal life.”
In the summer of 1992
a group of schoolchildren from our
community went up to a swimming hole in the Catskills, a popular
place for decades. On this day, as usual, some of the children were
relaxing in the sun on the rocks. Two girls were on a favorite rock
ledge above the pool, and others were still swimming below.
Suddenly there was a thunderous crash. The entire ledge had fallen,
throwing the girls out into the pool and narrowly missing a boy
below, who suffered only a minor injury to his foot. Had the ledge
fallen seconds earlier, the boy would have been crushed beneath
the rock. If it had collapsed at a different angle, the girls would
surely have been pinned between it and the rock wall from which it
had broken off. As a shaken teacher put it: “Absolute protection
from absolute disaster!”
We pray for many things, but perhaps never as intensely as when
our loved ones or we ourselves face physical harm from illness or
injury. When protection or healing is granted, a sense of deep
gratefulness fills us. When it is not given, however, the pain of the
experience may remain as an ineradicable memory.
Clare, a woman who moved to our community several years ago,
recalls how she felt when she heard of our church’s intercession for
two members, both fathers of large families, who were killed in a
plane crash.
I was deeply struck upon hearing how the community had gathered on the night they were missing and prayed earnestly for
them, not just once, but three times that night. The whole community was really praying for something to happen and expecting God to answer them. It was not play-acting at being Christians; it was the real thing. They were wringing their hearts out
before God. That hit me. Since then I’ve learned of other times
of crisis when people will gather quietly to pray around the
clock, not heroically but earnestly carrying a situation on their
hearts and interceding for someone in trouble.
Franzi was one of my teachers
in grade school, and I loved her
dearly, even though she was very strict. Though a tiny, unassuming
woman, Franzi had a most dramatic life story, and over the eighty-seven years of her long life she was repeatedly protected in unexpected ways.
Born in Vienna in 1911 to non-religious Jews, Franzi was six when
her mother died; her father died the following year. An aunt became guardian of Franzi and her two sisters. The First World War
was just over and Vienna was under a blockade. Starvation was imminent, so thousands of children were sent by train across Europe
to Sweden, Franzi among them. She was so small and weak that,
although seven, she could be carried on one arm. She was in Sweden for two years, and then returned to Austria.
In the mid-1920s anti-Semitism was already strong in the country, and it was only through her aunt’s special connections that
Franzi was admitted into a teacher’s training program. Later she
studied philosophy and liberal arts at the University of Vienna,
where she met and worked with Edith Stein and Simone Weil,
among others. Franzi received her doctorate in May 1937. Her
choice for a dissertation,
Poetry of Austrian Workers,
was significant; though an intellectual, she had a deep concern for the working class.
Hitler marched into Austria on March 13, 1938, and life became
very hard for all Jews. It was dangerous for an Aryan to be associated with a Jew in any way, but my large circle of non-Jewish
friends hid me in their midst and in several cases even risked their
lives on my behalf. But then, on November 9, 1938, came the
Kristallnacht,
the “night of broken glass,” when Jewish businesses and synagogues throughout the Reich were systematically vandalized, burned, and looted. I too was turned out of my
house and onto the street. Fortunately, I had somewhere to go
temporarily, but when I returned to my house and asked to have
the keys back, I was forced to sign a paper saying that I had left
the house because it was in an area where Jews were not allowed to live. So I had to get myself a little room in the Jewish
ghetto.
My friends felt sure that war would come, and then I would
no longer be able to get out of the country, so at their urging, I
left Vienna in April 1939. I didn’t have too much trouble getting
out of Austria; the difficulty was that England would not accept
any Jews from the Continent unless someone in Britain would
provide an affidavit, a guarantee for a home and a job. Obtaining such an affidavit had become a life-and-death question for
Jews wanting to get out of the Reich; when meeting in the
street or anywhere, they would inquire of one another, “Have
you got an affidavit yet?”
Aunt Else, my guardian, had been the tutor for Sigmund
Freud’s children, and we were often at their house. I was especially close to his daughter Anna, although she was considerably
older than I. The Freuds had emigrated to England the previous
year, but Anna had promised she would help to get me out of
Austria. So she signed the papers on my behalf, and I soon found
myself in London with a place to stay and work as a governess.
Now I was in a foreign country, without money or relations.
Everything was different – language, customs, food, and political views. Over the next three years I was very lonely, partly because the English did not look kindly on “enemy aliens.” In
Vienna I had thought that to be a Jew was the worst possible
thing, and now I was not only a Jew, but I was a German Jew.
Soon I left my teaching post and began to work in the Land
Army, a corps of manual laborers organized to increase the
country’s food production. Once, on a new farm, the owners
became suspicious of me when they found that I was highly educated, and they reported me as a spy. Fortunately, nothing came
of it.
In my childhood my mother had taught me simple prayers,
and my beloved aunt Else certainly believed in God. In 1941 I was
living with a pastor and his wife, and I began to read the Bible. I
soon felt an immense hunger for the realization of Christ’s
teachings on earth. During Lent 1942 I wrote an article for a
magazine, “National Socialism: Not a National but an Individual
Problem.” Through that article I was led into contact with the
Bruderhof people, who had fled Hitler’s Germany only a few
years earlier.
Through all of this, Franzi held firm to her belief in God. She has
told me that despite the horrors of those years, she never lost faith.
She did, however, lose nearly all of her relatives; they were sent by
train to an unknown destination (Auschwitz?) in Poland.
I had experienced so many miracles of protection. I felt the need
to be forgiven and to forgive. There were times of great anguish, loneliness, pain, and forsakenness. Yet the wonder of
God’s grace has overshadowed everything for me. He helped me
through every need and showed me again and again that the
power of love can overcome all hatred and evil.
Franzi’s escape from certain death at the hands of the Nazis was
always a mystery to her. Why had God let her live, when so many
millions of others had been killed? One thing was clear to her, however. She felt her life must become an offering of thanks, both to
the God who had protected and saved her, and to the many who
had helped her in times of danger. And in fact, Franzi did devote
the rest of her life to serving others. Whether to the hundreds of
children she went on to teach over the next decades, or to those
who simply knew her as a neighbor and friend, she will not be soon
forgotten.
Those who follow God conscientiously
find that life is never
free of trials, suffering, and even persecution. Only three years after the Bruderhof settled safely in England, the British government
announced plans to intern all Germans in camps for “enemy
aliens.” Because we did not want to split the community along national lines, we had to find a new home. Paraguay was the only
country open to a large international group of communal pacifists.
John, a Londoner who had joined the community in 1940, remembers: