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The answer to this question
is that perhaps we were living on earth
in an utterly false and counterfeit security.
And now God strikes the earth till it resounds,
now he shakes and shatters; not to pound
us with fear, but to teach us one thing -
the spirit's innermost moving
and being moved.
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Here is the message of Advent:
faced with him who is the Last,
the world will begin to shake.
Only when we do not cling to false
securities will our eyes be able to see
this Last One and get to the bottom of things.
Only then will we be able to guard our life
from the frights and terrors into which
God the Lord has let the world sink
to teach us, so that we may awaken from sleep,
as Paul says, and see that it is time to repent,
time to change things.
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It is time to say, "All right, it was night;
but let that be over now and let us
be ready for the day."
We must do this with a decision
that comes out of these very horrors
we have experienced and all that is
connected with them; and because of this
our decision will be unshakable
even in uncertainty.
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If we want to transform life again,
if Advent is truly to come again - the Advent
of the people and the nations,
a coming of the Lord in all this -
then the great Advent question for us
is whether we come out of these
convulsions with this determination:
yes, arise! It is time to waken from sleep.
It is time for a waking up to begin somewhere.
It is time to put things back where
God the Lord put them.
It is time for each of us to go to work,
with the same unshakable sureness
that the Lord will come, to set
our life in God's order
wherever we can.
Advent is a time when we ought
to be shaken and brought to a realization
of ourselves.
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alluring dreams in which and by means
of which we always build ourselves
imaginary worlds.
In this way we force reality to take us
to itself by force - by force, in much
pain and suffering.
.
Alfred Delp, S.J.
Written in a Nazi prison shortly before
he was hanged, in 1945, for his
opposition to Hitler.
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You can't do the end of the world in
a conventionally dramatic way
or Boy Meets Girl way.
.
Terry Southern (1924-1995)
Screenwriter & UniversityLecturer
Wrote dialogue for Doctor Strangelove, The Cincinatti Kid,
Easy Rider, The Magic Christian, and The Loved One.
.
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.
.
The necessary condition for the
fulfillment of Advent is the renunciation
of the presumptuous attitudes andalluring dreams in which and by means
of which we always build ourselves
imaginary worlds.
In this way we force reality to take us
to itself by force - by force, in much
pain and suffering.
.
Alfred Delp, S.J.
Written in a Nazi prison shortly before
he was hanged, in 1945, for his
opposition to Hitler.
.
You can't do the end of the world in
a conventionally dramatic way
or Boy Meets Girl way.
.
Terry Southern (1924-1995)
Screenwriter & UniversityLecturer
Wrote dialogue for Doctor Strangelove, The Cincinatti Kid,
Easy Rider, The Magic Christian, and The Loved One.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
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