72 Years Ago Today---Bonhoeffer from Prison

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letter to his parents, December 17, 1943

Of course you can’t help thinking of my being in prison over Christmas, and it is bound to throw a shadow over the few hours of happiness which still await you in these times.  All I can do to help is to assure you that I know you will keep it in the same spirit as I do, for we agree on how Christmas should be kept.  How could it be otherwise when my attitude to Christmas is a heritage I owe to you?  I need not tell you how much I long to be released and to see you all again.  But for years you have given us such lovely Christmases, that our grateful memories are strong enough to cast their rays over a darker one.  In times like these we learn as never before what it means to possess a past and a spiritual heritage untrammeled by the changes and chances of the present.  A spiritual heritage reaching back for centuries is a wonderful support and comfort in the face of all temporary stresses and strains.  I believe that the man who is aware of such reserves of power need not be ashamed of the tender feelings evoked by the memory of a rich and noble past, for such feelings belong, in my opinion, to the better and nobler part of humankind.  They will not overwhelm those who hold fast to values of which no one can deprive them.

For a Christian there is nothing peculiarly difficult about Christmas in a prison cell.  I daresay it will have more meaning and will be observed with greater sincerity here in this prison than in places where all that survives of the feast is its name.  That misery, suffering, poverty, loneliness, helplessness and guilt look very different to the eyes of God from what they do to man, that God should come down to the very place which men usually abhor, that Christ was born is a stable because there was no room for him in the inn—these are things which a prisoner can understand better than anyone else.  For the prisoner the Christmas story is glad tidings in a very real sense.  And that faith gives the prisoner a part in the communion of saints, a fellowship transcending the bounds of time and space and reducing the months of confinement here to insignificance. 

On Christmas Eve I shall be thinking of you all very much, and I want you to believe that I too shall have a few hours of real joy and that I am not allowing my troubles to get the better of me.

It will certainly be a quiet Christmas for everybody, and the children will look back on it for a long time afterwards.  But for the first time, perhaps, many will learn the true meaning of Christmas.

--From Letters and Papers from Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 8, pages 224-226 (Fortress Press, 2010)