# Der Junge Lutheraner_Frankfurt am Main_Januar 1950_S2
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Page 2                                                                    January 1950                                                                    Number 1

Old Andres's Thoughts
on Time

When I was still a boy, my father called me to him one day to show me how one can tell what time it is. He told me what the big hand was for, namely to indicate the minutes, and the little hand, to indicate the hours, and had me learn the numbers on the dial; I was not allowed to go until I knew my lesson quite well. I had scarcely pocketed this addition to my knowledge when I was already off to join my companions and go on playing with them. But my father at once called after me: "Stop, Andres, I still have something to tell you!"

I turned quickly back, scratched behind my ears, and wondered what more I could possibly have to learn about the clock, for I thought I now knew everything. "Andres!" he said, "I have now taught you that you can always find out the time of day; but I must still tell you how to go about knowing what time it is in your life."

That, to be sure, was all Greek to me; full of impatience I waited for my father's explanation, I stood as if on hot coals, for I badly wanted to be off to my companions.

"The Bible," he said, "speaks of human life as lasting seventy years, and, if it goes well, eighty years. Life is of course very uncertain, and it is possible that you will not live even one more day. But if we divide the eighty years of life into twelve parts, like the hours on the dial, then about seven years fall to each hour. When a boy is seven years old, it is one o'clock in his life, and so it is with you now; when you turn fourteen, then it is two o'clock for you; and when you turn twenty-one, then it is three o'clock. So you can always know what time it is in your life, and every time you look at the clock, it can remind you of this. By this reckoning, my great-grandfather died at twelve o'clock, my grandfather at eleven, and my father at ten. At what hour you and I shall die, Andres, only He who knows all things knows."

I believe that since then I have never looked at a clock without remembering my father's words.

Now, dear fellow pilgrim, I do not know what time it is in your life; I only know what the bell has struck for me. But I wish that the dial of the clock might carry this same solemn importance in your eyes, and I ask you that now and then, when you look at the tower clock or take your pocket watch in hand, you ask yourself: What time is it in my life?

From Paulsen, "Nachtisch für Gottteskinder"

Is Death a Friend?

Matthias Claudius writes: "Dedication to Friend Hain."

I have the honor of knowing your brother, and he is my good friend and patron.

There are said to be people, called strong spirits, who in their lifetime let nothing about Hain trouble them, and who even mock him and his thin legs behind his back. I am not a strong spirit; to tell the truth, a cold shiver runs down my back every time I look at you. And yet I want to believe that you are a good man, once one knows you well enough; and yet it is to me as though I had a kind of homesickness and courage toward you, you old Rupprecht the gatekeeper! That you too will come one day to loosen my hunger-belt, and lay me down safely in my place to rest, for better times.

Increase in Suicides

The daily press reports from Berlin that the number of suicides there has risen sharply in recent months. Most of the persons who voluntarily departed from life in the last four weeks were over 65 years old. —

Do you sense what shattering tragedy lies behind this sober newspaper report? Old people, who have toiled all their lives and for whom everything has slipped through their fingers, people who can no longer work and yet still have a right to live, despair because they no longer know what they are to live on.

What do we do, for our part, to help such people, so that they do not despair and throw their lives away? Have you ever given an offering for a Christian home for the aged? Our churches have such a home in Hesel. Or have you ever told such people that they have a precious comfort when they hold fast in faith to their Savior and trust in His power and grace? Have you ever called out to them the promise of the LORD: "Yea, I will carry and lift you up to old age, and to your gray hairs. I will do it. I will lift and carry and deliver you" (Isa. 46:4)?

Hr.

[Illustration: banner "We Speak Our Minds" with a drawing of young people]

The letters published here represent the opinion of the sender. They are not endorsed in every point by the editorial staff. In the case of letters to the editorial staff, consent to publication in full or in excerpt is assumed, unless the sender expresses other wishes. The editorial staff reserves the right in every case to shorten submissions as editorial necessity requires.

Lourdes

Inexplicable Miracles

To the author of the letter that gave an answer, in the November issue, to the question of the miracle-working spring at Lourdes, thanks are due for his clear position. Yet it seems to me that in his explanation of the healings "in a completely natural way" he forgets two things:

First, he takes as the object of his explanations the examples given by the film "Das Lied von Bernadette." He disregards the fact that these examples exist, after all, in the film; perhaps they are also historically attested, but in any case they cannot be checked with complete certainty. So, in order to arrive at an objective judgment, we must look for examples of miraculous healings from the present day. At Lourdes there have repeatedly been cases, and there still are, where every natural explanation has failed. An international college of physicians, whose objectivity can hardly be doubted (it has often exposed alleged miraculous healings), has repeatedly proven itself unable to give a scientific explanation for healings. So we stand before riddles that even the popular explanation of autosuggestion cannot solve for us. (That autosuggestion is not capable of significantly influencing organic diseases, especially in an advanced stage, let alone curing them, has just now been confirmed once again by numerous psychotherapists in their investigations into Bruno Gröning's alleged miraculous healings.)

Furthermore, the writer of the letter forgets that the film "Das Lied von Bernadette" fights precisely against every kind of rationalistic explanation and wants to show inexplicable miracles. Indeed, over the film stand the words of Franz Werfel: "For those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible." This statement applies both to Bernadette's visions and to the miracle-working spring. — The writer's rationalistic thinking (he calls it earlier also "the sober restraint that preserves our Lutheran stance") I do not, for my part, share. I consider miraculous healings, even in our own day, entirely possible. The cult of Mary or of the saints, the processions and pilgrimages, and many other Catholic customs bound up with it, I of course reject. — As for the film, its high artistic achievements are surely beyond dispute (apart from the kitschy filming of the visions). In its spiritual stance, however, it is essentially shaped by Catholic ideas that we cannot share. Without doubt it also has genuinely evangelical traits (for example, that Sister Marie Thérèse Vauzons, who wants to earn heaven through strict, almost cruel asceticism and good works, despairs of her righteousness by works and comes to recognize her dependence on God's grace). On the other hand, it has the Catholic dogma of the "Immaculate Conception" confirmed by a supernatural apparition; it propagates the cult of Mary (Bernadette's message to the dean of Lourdes, on behalf of her "Lady," is: Let a church be built, and lead processions to the spring). Belief in amulets is affirmed in it (before her journey to the convent, Bernadette receives numerous amulets of patron saints); the monastic life is presented as meritorious (Bernadette is urged by the dean, with the words: Heaven has chosen you, now choose heaven! to enter a convent); and belief in the saints is confirmed (at Bernadette's deathbed the dean speaks the words: You are now in heaven and on earth!).

This makes the film a tendentious film, which — consciously or unconsciously — carries on propaganda for a churchly outlook. Not without reason has the Catholic Church, from every pulpit, most warmly recommended to its faithful that they see this film.

Jobst Schöne

No True Salvation

In the Lutheraner of November 1949, I was able to read the article on Lourdes. I am glad that a start was made from this point of view. All too often one presents one's position from a side the questioner had not thought of. But the miracles of Lourdes have yet another meaning, as Dr. Ludwig Faulhaber also expresses¹): "Since the year 1858 many people there have found their prayers heard and found help, and bear witness to the truth of the invocation of the Litany of Loreto, according to which Mary is the health of the sick." At Lourdes one sees in the healings a confirmation of Roman Catholic teaching, based on Mark 16:20. With great diligence the miracles are examined, so as not to err.

But we cannot rejoice in this. For in doing so one abandons Christ, our salvation, and God's inerrant Word. All too often one seeks the salvation of one's health and does not think of one's soul. I cannot imagine how an evangelical Christian could find God's peace there; or if so, only in such a way that his eyes are opened there and he then finds again in God's Word what is not to be heard there in clarity. We have more certain words, which Peter spoke to the Sanhedrin: "Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved" — than the name of Jesus Christ alone. The apostle Paul warns us that we should expect no other gospel, even if an angel from heaven were to proclaim it to us. Many will not understand us in drawing the boundary so narrowly, in order to hold fast with undivided devotion to our Savior.

Therefore Lourdes can mean nothing to us and can be no help to us; rather, we wish to remain with what is familiar to us and what we have learned.

Walter Richter

1) In St. Heinrichsblatt No. 45, page 4.