NY Times Best-Selling Author
Happy New Year, Everyone.
Thank you for joining me in this year’s Advent Readalong. I hope you enjoyed Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s reflections. This evening I’ll be joining the All Things SR Podcast in their chatroom at 7PM for a concluding chat. You can join the chat here. Join me.
As always, I welcome your comments and reflections below.
Peace be with you,
SR
Dear Everyone,
The theme of our readings this past week was Redemption. Redemption is a powerful thing and one that I try to explore through my writings.
Many of us long for a second chance, for forgiveness, for mercy. Bonhoeffer stresses the message of redemption through grace and the central importance of the Incarnation. The Incarnation, the culmination of our Advent waiting, is the beginning of the possibility of redemption.
While Advent teaches us to wait, the recognition of our need for redemption should teach us to be patient with others who are also in need of forgiveness, grace, and mercy. It’s so easy to look at the world around us and point to all those who need to change, but it’s very difficult to turn our eyes inward and admit our own faults and ask for forgiveness.
Last night at Mass we sang “O come, O come Emmanuel.” Come and be with us, God, and be with us in our self-righteousness and failures. Rescue us from ourselves. Forgive us and teach us to forgive others.
As we turn toward Christmas in these next few days, Bonhoeffer invites us to meditate on the profound mystery of the Incarnation. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and welcome your comments below. Our readings will continue until Epiphany, which is January 6th.
Peace be with you all and with your communities,
SR
Dear Everyone,
A theme for the first week in Advent was Waiting. The theme for the second week is Mystery. At first glance, these two ideas don’t seem to connect with one another. But when one is faced with mystery, one must be patient. When one is faced with mystery, one must be silent. Again, I am moved by Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s wisdom in affirming the mystery of God, the Incarnation, and Advent.
Advent brings endless questions – why not now? Why not sooner? Why there? Why then? Why? I look forward to the day when the questions are answered and the mysteries are solved, but now I wait and I embrace the mystery, while looking forward.
Faith, hope, and charity; in Advent, we see the commingling of these three theological virtues, but Advent certainly is the season of hope. While we continue our reading this week, and we look toward Christmas, I’d like us to take some time each day in silence to reflect on the joy of what is to come. O come, o come Emmanuel, God with us …
I welcome your comments and I hope that you continue to have a blessed Advent. Thank you for reading along with me,
SR
Dear Everyone,
We are embarking on the second week of Advent. I’ve really enjoyed the first week of readings from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “God is in the Manger,” along with your comments. Thank you for reading with me and for sharing your thoughts. I think of Advent, like Lent, as a kind of journey and I’m very grateful to you for journeying with me.
This week, I was struck again by Bonhoeffer’s wisdom. His reflections are always insightful, but this week his examination of both waiting and silence caught my attention. I am notoriously impatient and have been so my entire life. (The Professor and I share this attribute) Bonhoeffer reminds us that to be a Christian is to wait. At this point in our history, we live between the resurrection and the New Jerusalem. We live in gratitude and in hope, but there is much that is “not yet.” And so we must wait. We must be patient, even as we are impatient with suffering, tragedy, war, and death.
Bonhoeffer also meditates on silence: “Silence ultimately means nothing but waiting for God’s word and coming away blessed by God’s word.” This remark struck me, particularly in its relation to waiting. The more impatient I am, the more I have to say. But when I’m impatient or cross, I’m not listening. Bonhoeffer observes that the silence of the Christian is a “listening silence.” At least, it should be.
We wait in hope. We listen in silence. We have faith the time will come and so will the answers. And in the meantime, we are part of a wide and generous community of fellow travellers who wait and listen with us and to us. Let’s be sure to remember one another in our prayers, and let’s also remember those in our community who are ill.
Peace be with you all. I welcome your comments below.
May your Advent continue to be blessed,
SR
Dear Everyone.
Peace be with you and peace be with your communities. I hope that all who are celebrating have a blessed Advent.
Today, I am beginning my Advent reading of Day One of “God is in the Manger,” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) . I’ll be completing a reading from the book each day until Christmas, when I’ll begin the Twelve Days of Christmas reading, which starts on page 65. Please join me.
I’ll be posting weekly reflections here on my website and I welcome your comments below. I’ll also be participating in a chat with the All Things SR podcast during their podcast on January 5th, 2025.
The editors of “God is in the Manger” have provided a short biography of Bonhoeffer in their Preface. I invite you to read it. If you want to read more about Bonhoeffer you can do so here: https://bonhoeffersociety.org/about/bonhoeffer/biography/
I also recommend his work “The Cost of Discipleship.”
But today, I am going to meditate on the first reading, which declares that Advent is the season of waiting and that Christ comes to us in the person of our fellow human beings. Transcendence and immanence. Grace and responsibility.
I am conscious of the tremendous suffering the world this Advent and I am conscious of the fact that there is so much hatred between human beings. I am confronted with the question of what I am doing for the world and in the world this Advent. As I live, and speak, and act, do I contribute to the problem or am I working toward a solution?
Bonhoeffer, who lived and wrote during a time of war and hate, faced these questions. I’m looking forward to learning from him once again.
Peace be with you all,
SR.
I am honoured to have had all three of my novels appear on the New York Times and USA Today Bestseller lists. I was a Semifinalist for Best Author in the 2011 and 2012 Goodreads Choice Awards. {More About Sylvain}