Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community by DIETRICH BONHOEFFER - May 1954

HarperSanFrancisco, May 1954. Paper Back. New. ''He was one of the very few persons I have ever met for whom God was real and always near.'' So testified an English officer who was one of the last to see Bonhoeffer before his execution by the Nazis in April, 1945. If we are very honest, we must admit that such persons -- who have opened themselves to the grace of God to the extent that they become signs of His presence -- are exceedingly rare. It is necessary to listen attentively to such persons, to try to hear the notes of their intense and compelling song of response to their Beloved, to ''catch'' (in C.S. Lewis's sense of the phrase ''good infection'') whatever they have that coveys the immediacy of God. These lectures given in 1938 to seminary students of the German ''Confessing Church,'' outline the nature of authentic Christian life: that it is defined by community, rather than isolated individuality, and manifested in regular daily prayer with others, prayer and meditation in solitude (''let him who cannot be alone beware of community''),witness and ministry (defined as holding one's tongue, meekness, listening, and proclaiming) and the Sacraments (''as the members of the congregation are united in body and blood at the table of the Lord so will they be together in eternity'').