Dear parents!
Even though it is unclear whether and how letters are being delivered these days, I would like to write to you this afternoon on the 1st Advent Sunday. Altdorfer's Christmas painting (1), showing the Holy Family with the manger in the midst of the ruins of a ruined house, seems particularly relevant – how could such an idea arise four hundred years ago in defiance of all tradition? Perhaps he wanted to say that we can and must celebrate Christmas even so; in any case, it speaks to us. I like to imagine you sitting with your children now and celebrating Advent with them as we did years ago. However, everything is done more intensively now because it is unclear how long this will last.
(1) Albrecht Altdorfer /1480–1538/, German Renaissance painter, graphic artist and architect, pupil of Dürer; the painting of the Nativity dates from 1513.
(Dietrich Bonhoeffer /1906–1945/, letter from a Nazi prison, November 28, 1943;
quoted from the book Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Resistance and Surrender, Letters from Prison, Kalich 2023)
