Dorothee Soelle has remarked that...
Illustration
Dorothee Soelle has remarked that "people can be dead for forty years even though they
bring home a salary, look stylish, and can manage nice vacation trips." These are the
people who love their lives so much they have already lost them.
Jesus teaches that the beginning of our resurrection is the day we die to that kind of life. When he calls us to the journey of faith, he bids us, in the oft-quoted words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to "come and die." This is not as morbid as it might sound. Again, listen to the words of Dorothee Soelle:
I used to understand the story of Jesus' crucifixion as the terrible, tragic end of a great idealistic person.... Today I think a bit differently, because I have learned much from the martyrs of our century. Martin Luther King Jr., Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ita Ford, Oscar Romero, Maximilian Kolbe, Steve Biko ... to name only a few. When I read of their deaths, I find pieces of life, of ongoing, indestructible life. I see in the dead ones and in their dying something that transcends the tragedy.
Jesus teaches that the beginning of our resurrection is the day we die to that kind of life. When he calls us to the journey of faith, he bids us, in the oft-quoted words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to "come and die." This is not as morbid as it might sound. Again, listen to the words of Dorothee Soelle:
I used to understand the story of Jesus' crucifixion as the terrible, tragic end of a great idealistic person.... Today I think a bit differently, because I have learned much from the martyrs of our century. Martin Luther King Jr., Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ita Ford, Oscar Romero, Maximilian Kolbe, Steve Biko ... to name only a few. When I read of their deaths, I find pieces of life, of ongoing, indestructible life. I see in the dead ones and in their dying something that transcends the tragedy.
