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The task of pastoral ministry, above all else, is to arrange contingencies for an encounter with the divine.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The early morning belongs to the Church of the risen Christ. At the break of light it remembers the morning on which death and sin lay prostrate in defeat and new life and salvation were given to mankind.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Break Death Defeat Human Life Light Morning Remember Rise Sin
We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Learning Light People Suffering
God loves human beings. God loves the world. Not an ideal human, but human beings as they are; not an ideal world, but the real world. What we find repulsive in their opposition to God, what we shrink back from with pain and hostility, namely, real human beings, the real world, this is for God the ground of unfathomable love.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

God Human Ideal Love Pain Reality World
Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Evil Grace Judgement Love Spiritual
The Church is the Church only when it exists for others, not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live for Christ, to exist for others.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Existence Help Live Man
We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

God Ourselves Path People
While it is good that we seek to know the Holy One, it is probably not so good to presume that we ever complete the task.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Goodness Job Seek
No sacrifice which a lover would make for his beloved is too great for us to make for our enemy.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Enemy Greatness Love Ourselves Sacrifice
Sanctification means that the Christians have been judged already, and that they are being preserved until the coming of Christ and are ever advancing towards it.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Judgement Religious
Your life as a Christian should make non believers question their disbelief in God.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Believe God Life Yourself
Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Believe Character Himself
I wonder why it is that we find some days so much more oppressive than others, for no apparent reason. Is it growing pains – or spiritual trial? Once they’re over, the world looks quite a different place again.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Different Growth Myself Oppression Pain Place Quite Reason Spiritual World
There is meaning in every journey that is unknown to the traveler.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Journey Travel
We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

God Ourselves
There is a wrong way of staying in the world and a wrong way of fleeing from it. In both cases we are fashioning ourselves according to the world.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Fashion Ourselves Stay World Wrong
The limitation of the ethical phenomenon to its place and time does not imply its rejection but, on the contrary, its validation. One does not use canons to shoot sparrows.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Limitation Place Rejection Time

The task of pastoral ministry, above all else, is to arrange contingencies for an encounter with the divine.

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The task of pastoral ministry, above all else, is to arrange contingencies for an encounter with the divine.

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