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Kitchen Chat and more…
Kitchen Chat and more…
Herman Groh was a man of the world who broadened his education throughout his life. He spoke many languages and understood several more. Outwardly, Groh’s life took him first to Russia, Siberia, and Vladivostok during the First World War, and then (1928) to California for 6 months. In other words, he traveled from East to West before settling in the center, where he focused his energies. This also seems to correspond to the major inward gesture of his life.
Born into a Berlin merchant family in Berlin-Charlottenburg on 11 June 1894, Groh attended a grammar school in Cologne from Easter 1901 until his graduation at Easter 1912, receiving a comprehensive education with an emphasis on classical languages. Already at this age, he read philosophical books and Shakespeare during class. He exercised his lanky body with iron discipline and became the top athlete in his class. He went on long hikes with his comrades, becoming well-acquainted with the environs of Berlin and the Brandenburg region. Given the number of kilometers covered, they were really more like marches than hikes. His gym teacher, Döhring, not only took his boys out into nature, but in the evenings after the hikes also enthusiastically introduced them to the world of idealistic philosophy and classical literature.
Groh reportedly nearly drowned around this time while swimming in the Müggelsee (a lake outside Berlin). He saw his entire life up to that moment pass before him in full detail. During the same timeframe, while playing ice hockey on a frozen lake, he once saved the life of someone who had broken through the ice.
He passed his high school graduation exams at 18 and a half, later explaining that this was thanks to his A in gymnastics. Before the First World War broke out, he completed a voluntary one-year tour with the cavalry in Schleswig and began his studies in Freiburg/Breisgau, studying philosophy and political economics. He became particularly engrossed with Hegel.
Drafted at the outset of the war, he was a 21-year-old junior cavalry officer in Russia when he was captured in 1915 during a patrol in Courland. It was not until January 1921 that he returned home (via China) after a long Russian captivity.
His time as a prisoner-of-war in Siberia, and then ultimately as an able-bodied citizen under the “Reds” brought him many “opportunities”—for example as a lumberjack or as a librarian in Minussinsk—a calmer phase in a compound in Krasnoyarsk. He was able to continue his Hegel studies there, and this brought him into contact with the epistemological writings of Carl Unger and books by Rudolf Steiner. (The books had been sent to a comrade by a friend from Vienna). The book How to Know Higher Worlds impressed him the most, and it was after reading it that Groh decided to return to Germany to meet Rudolf Steiner, although he had actually intended to remain in Russia.
Even before this calmer chapter during the turmoil of revolutionary Russia, Groh had faced death a second time: Having escaped from a camp with a friend and walked 2,000 kms through Manchuria, he was captured in the last town before the Chinese border and imprisoned. The “Reds” released him shortly before he was shot: just before his execution the news of the tsar’s assassination arrived. Following his release from captivity in Vladivostok and his return to Europe by steamship, Groh met a group of students from Tübingen travelling for the anthroposophical First Class course in Stuttgart in 1921. Among them was Gerhard Klein, who later became his brother-in-law. His first question to them was reportedly about whether there was a real community here. He became one of the participants in the so-called Autumn Course, the second major round of teaching for the founding circle, to which Rudolf Steiner had invited people to Dornach.
Without finishing his studies or professional training, Groh committed himself to this common goal. In 1922, he reportedly made most of the journey from Berlin to Breitbrunn on foot, as simply driving to such an important event was out of the question. Unfortunately, he is missing from the Breitbrunn group picture. He then drove with the others to Dornach and was ordained by Emil Bock in the first Goetheanum on 16 September 1922 as the 21st member of the circle.
Herman Groh founded his first congregation in Essen-Mülheim. He chose this city because there were hardly any anthroposophists, thus also no branch of the Anthroposophical Society. He then worked in Vienna starting in 1929, setting up a small chapel in his home in Grinzing. During this time, he heard Dr. Roman Boos make serious attacks on The Christian Community, which shocked him deeply. Finally, as of 1935, he worked in the Dresden congregation for his third sending.
After participating in Rudolf Steiner’s last major lecture in Dornach in September 1924, he was married there on 26 September to his colleague Gerhard Klein’s sister Lilli. Alfred Heidenreich celebrated the marriage sacrament in the White Hall of the first Goetheanum. Gottfried Husemann and Marta Heimeran were witnesses and five other colleagues were present. The couple had six children.
In 1939 in Dresden, before The Christian Community was banned, Groh was drafted into the Wehrmacht at the beginning of the Second World War, even though he was already 45. Due to his excellent language skills, he was transferred on the recommendation of his brother-in-law Gerhard Klein from a veterinary hospital for horses to the large prison camp Mühlberg/Elbe as an interpreter for Russian, English, and French. He cultivated extensive connections with the captured Russians and Frenchmen. Instead of carrying a revolver for his personal security, he carried his sandwich with him when he had to accompany the prisoners. A prison chaplain later called him a “true Christian”; that is what he proved to be there. Johannes Lenz wrote about this time in more detail in the journal Die Christengemeinschaft, 2004, p. 579ff. When a typhus epidemic broke out in the camp and all the Germans decamped, he remained steadfastly at his post until he caught the disease himself.
As the person responsible for all church services in the camp, he worked closely with clergy of all denominations from a multitude of countries. With the help of a Russian clergyman who had been captured by the Germans while serving as a French soldier, Groh translated the Consecration of the Human Being into Russian.
After his recovery from typhus, he was released from service in 1944—again based on a recommendation—when his father fell seriously ill. Then he was obliged to manage his father’s chain of stores “Groh Brothers Milk and Cheese,” with all its products and dairies. While thus occupied, he experienced the collapse of the Third Reich in Berlin. The war had barely ended when Groh began to celebrate the Consecration of the Human Being again in the center of Berlin, where he lived on Brüderstraße in the Nikolai-Lessing House along with Anna Samweber. He brought his will to bear with particular intensity when celebrating. On long walks through the destroyed city, he regathered the members of his congregation. But as early as 1947, the leadership of The Christian Community suspended him from his parish duties because of his rigid attitude toward social and cultic matters, so from then on he no longer celebrated the sacraments. In 1952, Groh moved to his family in Gur Husum near Jever in East Frisia.
Herman Groh’s unconditional devotion to the absolute, to the spirit in thought and will, which he had learned from Hegel, had something exclusive, even one-sided about it. He was radical in this and used to demanding everything from himself and others. It testifies to his spiritual energy that he would read the entire Gospel of Mark standing up every day during Holy Week. He had divided it into 96 sections and he recited the Lord’s Prayer after each section. He remarked laconically that it only takes about four hours if done without stopping.
In addition to serious, faithful pastoral care, training his spiritual capabilities was important to him. He studied anthroposophy just as seriously. He vigorously and repeatedly worked through Rudolf Steiner’s four basic books according to the seasons of the year. He read the Old Testament in the original Hebrew. It is certainly a missed opportunity that he was not tasked with retranslating at least certain parts of it.
Although he burned whole stacks of manuscripts with translations, some things were saved. Groh’s life’s work can be seen in his work on the rhythms of the Old and New Testaments. He explored these rhythms in his daily polyglot studies. He always studied the Greek, Latin, English, French, and German texts in parallel, and in the case of the Old Testament he added the Hebrew text. He indicated his findings on the composition and rhythm of the texts with markings in his edition of the Bible; many people today use them as a study guide.
Groh studied the quality of time in general. He was convinced that one should be able to distinguish a Wednesday from a Thursday “atmospherically” at any time, even in a dark dungeon. Another leitmotif was the study of the Holy Scriptures over the course of the year. Additionally, he researched English and American literature for the occurrence of occult events. And finally, he always read as many international newspapers as possible.
He had thus been going along tirelessly engaged in learning until, after 63 active years, 12 of which he was forced to spend as a soldier and prisoner, a short, serious illness ended his life. This man of the world, who had come to know, understand, and love this earth and its peoples so fully, the priest, who had worked on himself so assiduously and was always available for people to talk to: now he was entering the world to which, after all his studying, praying, and meditating, he felt he belonged.
MEMORANDUM
At this moment in time, I believe that those of us who experienced the new Christianity imparted to us last autumn through the rituals and the breviary by our teacher Dr. Rudolf Steiner should, considering the present situation, feel obligated to help establish this Christianity right now as an active and influential force. Furthermore, those of us who are willing and able to devote all our energy to this task alone and are ready to act immediately, should start making intensive preparations together. Forming such a community strikes me as the necessary step now, as only this kind of community would be able to grasp the impulses imparted by the spiritual leader of a movement for the renewal of religious life.
This prospective community must hold in its consciousness that the focal point of future congregational life must be communal prayer in accordance with Christian rituals. The community must be an open one, trusting that the performance of these rituals will be made possible through a new connection to the spiritual stream that began with the deed of Christ and continues with the living Christ, a new beginning that will be given to people in due time.
This community can become strong through a life in Christ.
This community will work out of the power of Christ to reorganize of all areas of life and to create new forms of living in community with a view toward the work in future congregations.
Many questions have arisen among us since the Dornach course. Many practical details are still missing, and much of what we do have needs further elaboration. We must ask Dr. Steiner to help us continue our preparations.
I am resolved and prepared to join forces with those who see their life’s task as spreading the new Christianity. I will leave all past commitments behind and am ready to start work immediately. I request to shoulder the karma of the community, and I hope my own is not too heavy for the community to bear.
Berlin, March 4, 1922 Hermann Groh
Dr. Rudolf Frieling has been one of the most important representatives of the Christian Community since its founding. As a priest, he co-founded the congregations in Leipzig, Vienna, and New York. He made his influence felt through countless lectures and important writings, as well as through the publication of the magazine for the Movement for Religious Renewal. He was a leading teacher at the priest seminary for 50 years. He was part of the Movement’s leadership starting in 1929, before ultimately taking over as Erzoberlenker in 1960 and serving in that central position for 25 years.
Rudolf Frieling was born on March 23, 1901, in Leipzig. His father was a Protestant minister. Starting in 1902, he grew up with his brothers near the Rüdigsdorf Castle estate in Kohren- Sahlis, south of Leipzig, where his father served as a chaplain. There he could experience the wonderful natural surroundings of castle and park, which are linked with such names as Münchhausen, Schwind, Julius Mosen, and Rilke. His childhood was rich with sense-stimulating impressions, a “fantasy world,” as he called it. When he was three, one of his sisters died. The mantric form of the burial liturgy, which his uncle later had to repeat to him, gave him a deep experience of language.
When his father was transferred after seven years and became the resident minister in Chemnitz, the boy experienced this deliberate move from the country to the city as a “death sentence.” City and schools were a constant agony for his extremely sensitive soul. Nevertheless, he completed high school in the spring of 1920 with an outstanding Abitur (final exam).
Three experiences from his school days were especially important to Frieling: During a summer vacation in Warnemünde on the Baltic Sea, he was present when the German fleet departed. The result was a deep and life-long connection with the ocean, ships, and the navy.
Frieling also developed a special relationship with death stemming from the death of a teacher when he was 12, which shocked him deeply, and from a family life shaped by the many funeral services his father was obliged to perform.
The experiences during a vacation in Thüringen near the ruins of a cloister were so strong that Rudolf Frieling wanted to become a monk—and he immediately began to live like a monk and playact small rituals.
It had already become clear to him in high school during the war years that he wanted to study theology, and he started to do so on his own, completely independently. In addition, ever since he had learned about anthroposophy at 17 through a newspaper article by Friedrich Rittelmeyer, he had been reading more and more writings by Rudolf Steiner. Thus, by the time he started studying in Rostock in 1920/21, he had already become deeply engaged with theology and anthroposophy through self-study. It was under these circumstances, struggling to find the truth, that the student who was still a nobody wrote the famous Friedrich Rittelmeyer the letter provided at the end of this article. This letter describes not only Frieling’s inner state, but also that of a large number of founders. (Almost simultaneously with the letter, Rudolf Frieling sent his first essay called “The John Gospel in the Light of Expressionism” to Friedrich Rittelmeyer, as the publisher of the magazine “Christentum und Gegenwart” (Christianity and the Present Time).
At that time, Friedrich Rittelmeyer was living on the Birkwitz castle estate in Silesia recovering from his accident, and he had his wife answer the letter in way that would give the recipient courage and strength to continue his intensive studies.
While Frieling had studied in Rostock at first with Professor Althaus, among others, he was now drawn to Marburg/Lahn for the summer semester in 1921. He wrote a paper that he himself described as “non olet” (literally: doesn’t stink) about “Church Relations in Chemnitz around 1670,” which contained a chapter on Valentin Weigel. He found the material for this in the visitation files of that time that were preserved in the archives in Dresden.
In his first weeks at Marburg, Frieling had met fellow student Martin Borchart, who was also the (anthroposophical) branch leader. Then Johannes Werner Klein came to visit him in his dorm room and encouraged him to go to Stuttgart with him to attend the first theological course by Rudolf Steiner in June. Frieling followed this call. Despite being only 20 years old, he was already well prepared for the course both in terms of theology and anthroposophy. Once they had all arrived in Stuttgart, everyone gathered in a classroom at the Waldorf school for an introductory talk and a meet-and-greet. It is a commonly recalled how standoffish certain participants at first found the somewhat shy and awkward Rudolf Frieling.
From the summer of 1921 on, studies in Leipzig and the steps toward the founding of The Christian Community unfolded in tandem. Rudolf Frieling wrote at that time: “It often weighs heavily on my soul how little prepared I am, but I realize that the times demand we get started soon. I am also under no illusion that the time will ever come when I say: “Now I am completely prepared!” These sentences are characteristic not only of Frieling’s humbleness, but also of the way he energetically stepped forward to work for a known good.
From the winter semester of 1921/22 until 1924, he studied in his birth city of Leipzig while he founded the congregation with Johannes Perthel. He then did his Ph.D. on “The Reformation in Zwickau.”
One of his striking characteristics was his inexhaustible humor. A fat book of anecdotes could be written with hilarious stories and word plays. “I do not belong to the mimosa confession,” he wrote once. The first time he was meant to speak to the Leipzig congregation, it did not take long before he had already “said everything that he knew,” and the experienced Johannes Perthel had to step in and bridge the embarrassing gap. Rudolf Frieling: “We were much too young, after all. It was a children’s crusade.”
After completing his studies and his first activities in Leipzig, Rudolf Frieling worked in Mannheim (November 1924 to October 1926) and then Nürnberg. Members recalled long after the fact how they had learned Greek with him back then in order to be able to take up the St John Gospel in its original language.
In October 1927, he moved to Vienna in order to help build up the congregation until The Christian Community was banned in 1941.
He had married Margarethe Gayda on January 3, 1925, during the Berlin Convention in the Singacademie. From then on, a 45-year intimate common bond played a major role in Rudolf Frieling’s life work.
In April 1929, the office of Lenker (regional coordinator) was conferred on him, and he worked as such during the 30s in Bavaria. In 1938, Emil Bock designated him as his successor in the office of Erzoberlenker (chief coordinator). In August 1949, he became a titular Oberlenker (senior coordinator), and on February 24, 1960, he became Erzoberlenker. He then occupied this position a few years longer than Emil Bock.
While The Christian Community was banned, Rudolf Frieling at first found a position at the Vienna Antiquities and Monuments Office. “The monument that needed protecting was myself.” From November 1941 all the way into December 1945, he was deployed as a medic in Austria, in the region in which Rudolf Steiner had spent his childhood and youth. Later, he was in the vicinity of Berlin, and after the war ended, he was still in Stade as a prisoner until he was released to Marburg/Lahn, where his wife had found refuge with her parents after Vienna was occupied.
An episode reported from the beginning of the ban on The Christian Community shows Rudolf Frieling’s inner strength: A visiting colleague told him about the resigned attitude he had found among his friends during his travels. (The situation then was deadly serious.) Rudolf Frieling, slamming his hand on the table, yelled: “I don’t give a hoot about a Christian community that is blown over by the first wind. We will have to withstand very different storms still.”
After World War II, he worked out of Marburg as a “traveling preacher,” with particular focus on the congregations in the Rhein-Ruhr region, then for quite a while in Upper Bavaria, where large groups of members and friends had fled to many small towns.
In 1949, he moved to the United States, where he founded the first congregation in New York and from there was active for The Christian Community in other cities. This time lasted until 1954, after which he lived and worked in Stuttgart in the Fiechter/Bock house until he had to be entrusted to the Morgenstern House nursing home for the last two years of his grave illness. He died on January 7, 1986, at almost 85.
“An enlightened Christianity has once again become possible [through anthroposophy]. The Christian Community, on its special turf, also seeks to serve this kind of enlightened Christianity.”
A profound student of anthroposophy, Rudolf Frieling sought for enlightenment through the awakening spirit throughout his life. He was an outstanding lecturer and preacher. For almost 50 years, his classes at the priest seminary were among the most impactful student experiences. His theological works are available today in a four-volume set.
As a priest, because of his office on behalf of the priesthood (erzoberlenker), he was responsible for carrying out the sacrament of ordination. Through this, his impact extended in a special way far beyond lectures and writings to his service to the Word.
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Letter to Friedrich Rittelmeyer, Berlin
Most Honorable Minister!
Please forgive me, a total stranger, for asking you in writing for a big favor. I realize that I am being rather importunate, to say the least, but I do not do so on a whim. After waiting for a long time, I now see no alternative but to write you.
I am a theologian; it is about Rudolf Steiner.
Perhaps it would be best for me to quickly summarize what I have been doing until now. I became interested in theology in secondary school, particularly the New Testament. After a few years, I ended up out in left field, with Heitmüller1-Bousset2-Jülicher3-(Joh. Weiss). I took this position not because I enjoyed destroying and negating, but because I believed I owed it to my sense of truthfulness, to my scientific conscience; I made many sacrifices of the intellect in the process, some of them quite painful. I was in no way inwardly satisfied. All that was left of Christianity for me was veneration for the prophet Jesus based on the radically sanitized Mark and some logia (sayings attributed to Jesus Christ), but even this basis seemed to me to waver at times under the influence of Wrede and Bruckner. The St John Gospel had a powerful impact on me, but I thought I had to deny it any historical value. Paul struck me as having very little to do with Jesus.
I became aware of anthroposophy through your article on Steiner in the Christian World in the fall of 1917. You wrote once that, of course, there were also those kinds of people who treated Steiner’s teachings as new “Catholic dogma.” Well, what is a person to do? I could not just fish out a couple of crumbs that happened to appeal to my subjective taste and assimilate them into my world view, dismissing other things that struck me as unlikely. What right would I have to do that? After all, I cannot check what the man is saying. I do not know where his infallibility stops, where the border between the objective and the subjective lies with him. Either I doubt his infallibility, in which case everything is pretty worthless for me, because then I do not have the right to fish out this or that, or I simply have to believe. I am comforted by the fact that you, as a theologian, must have grappled with all these thoughts, too. It pains me that I am unable to take a certain stand with unshakable firmness, I am jealous of professors who have the often-naive conviction that their world view is the only right one, and I often consider myself as lacking in character because I sway back and forth between one viewpoint and another. I had thought that, with the help of anthroposophy, I would finally be able to take a specific stand on religion, but the aforementioned considerations seem to have placed even that into question. I do not want to start all over again, though, so I am asking you, if you have time, to perhaps clear some things up for me, because I do not want to turn completely away from anthroposophy yet, as I had placed such great hopes on it. Until I have tried everything, I cannot decide on this new painful amputation.
I read with great interest your further remarks on this subject in “The Christian World” in 1918 and 1919, as well as in “Christianity and the Present.” They also allowed me to get over much that was off-putting in Steiner’s books, which I then began to read. A new world literally opened for me. It was as if I was rediscovering the New Testament. It was so comforting to have the religious feelings of my childhood restored to me, of course endlessly deepened and widened. The idea of Christ began to dawn on me, and with it a better understanding for Paul, for Luther, for the church in general (including the Catholic Church, which, in terms of reverence for Christ, could strike me only as incomprehensible and “unchristian”). It was truly a “pleasure to live,” especially as a theology.
The only way I could provisionally justify this swing to the right to my scientific conscience was with Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy. But then came a major step back. I read various anti-Steiner articles, including some claims that definitely burst my bubble. For example:
My whole view of things once again began to vacillate. What I learned from various Steiner disciples was of little help. They often did not seem so clear themselves. In any case, such people have not the vaguest idea of what lies on a theologian’s heart. That holds true for the following questions as well: 1) Does it not come down to self-redemption for Steiner? 2) What happened to Luther’s deep experience of sin and grace? The feeling of separation from God, or, as Rudolf Otto stresses, the mysterium tremendum? 3) Is there a personal relationship to God? I frequently encountered such objections when I came to Steiner’s defense—often not easy; the most difficult thing, at any rate, is the question of what is true? In the end, it comes down to either simply believing Steiner or not.
Do not take me for a hopeless rationalist. On the contrary! But unclarity of thought can be so terribly painful that it can also damage religious life. When, for example, the thought comes to me that everything is merely a suggestion, then that cripples my inner life. The question of what to think of Christ now is no academic doctoral question. I am tired of constantly searching and wondering. I yearn for certainty.
How can I come visit you where you live? I will admit the following: I have heard it claimed many times over the past months that your illness is the result of Steiner exercises, even that you were in a mental institution. As I was exceedingly frightened particularly by the latter claim, I turned to Prof. Merkel in Nürnberg, who was kind enough to tell me that I had been taken in by some tall tales. That made me very happy. Then there was the rumor that you had broken ties with Steiner. Naturally, this all contributed to my complete confusion regarding anthroposophy. Happily, this is not true, either (the break with Steiner).
I am no longer bothered by reincarnation and the peculiar cosmic picture, or by the nature of some Steiner followers. I am only concerned with Christology and what hangs together with that. I am familiar with what you wrote to rebut Johannes Müller and Gogarten. The worst thing for me right now is the business with the two Jesus children, particularly the consequences of this, a terrible scandal; the escape from the passion of Golgotha; the view of the gospels; the issue of self-redemption; sin; and the personal relationship to God (an abyss separates meditation from prayer!)…
I do not get very far with the little bit said in “Christmas,” the “Lord’s Prayer,” and “Christianity as Mystical Fact.”
So, as I said, I would like to join the Steiner movement, but I find it impossible for the aforementioned reasons, at least temporarily. On the other hand, I already have too much to thank anthroposophy for to simply tuck it away on a shelf with a light heart. That would throw me back into uncertainty.
Sending you heartfelt wishes for a speedy recovery and I again beg your pardon for my forwardness.
Rud. Frieling
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1 German Protestant theologian
2 German theologian and NT scholar
3 Professor of Church History and NT Exegesis, at the University of Marburg
“Enter through the narrow gate. Only the road that leads into the abyss is wide and comfortable. And many are they who travel along it. But narrow is the gate and full of hardship which leads to the higher life, and it is only a few who find it.” (Mat. 7:13-14)
The wide road that leads to the abyss has many names these days. All those names have in common that someone makes himself broad at the expense of others. The well-known ways to do that are: abuse of power, intimidation, money and violence, lies and libel. The list can easily be continued—there are so many ways to exercise power and put others down. It could make you depressed. And that is exactly what happens on a large scale. In bitterness and disappointment about our hardening society countless people pull back. For self-preservation they flee to their own homes, their own interests, their own truth. Fight or flight—that is usually our way to make it through difficult circumstances. Those who do not belong to the powerful feel wronged and pull back into their cocoons and say: My time may cone…
Between the extremes of power and bitterness, of fight and flight, is there a third way? How can we keep our footing in a world where we are lurched back and forth by extremes? In such a world, what do the narrow way and the narrow gate look like that Christ wanted to show us?
The tightest gate we know is the eye of the needle. Through the eye of the needle you can only go with who you are, not with what you have. The needle—it was the narrowest little gate in the city wall of Jerusalem, through which a pack animal could only go after all the baggage had been taken off. The narrow way—that is the art of making yourself so small that there is room for the other, as well as so large that there is room for yourself without baggage—no more and no less. But how do you do that—be yourself and at the same time make room for the other? When we efface ourselves and serve only the interests of others, in due course we will lose ourselves. And when our ego is king in its own realm, we only serve our own interests. It demands the highest form of vigilance and presence of mind at the same time to show yourself the way you are and take the other the way he or she is. For every encounter and every situation asks something new of us. It asks for a movement back and forth between myself and the other, between showing myself the way I am and accepting the other as he or she is. Only when I remain myself in all circumstances and, at the same time, see in every human being my sister or brother, do I walk on the narrow way, through the narrow gate, and do I find myself in God, and God in the other.
That is the objective of our little, precious, vulnerable I: to become a pillar. Not a pillar for its own sake. A pillar only has meaning and only makes sense if, together with others, it carries the roof of the temple. That is what Christ promised us when He spoke of our objective: “Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my divine Father. He will no longer leave this temple.” (Rev. 3:12)
Rev. Bastiaan Baan, January 7, 2024