Paperback: Born on a Frisian farm in the province of Holland, Titus Brandsma (1881-1942) entered the novitiate of the Carmelites in Boxmeer. On his journey, he cultivated the spiritual garden of his cell in order to dwell in the face of his Creator. Becoming a scholar of philosophy and mysticism, Titus Brandsma was concentrated on the depths of human existence, but his contemplation gave him a broad view of reality and made him discover ever new horizons.
Although a university professor, he was a productive journalist, engaged in questions of culture and education. Prophet of peace and justice, Brandsma defended from the beginning the Jews against Nazi ideology. During the German occupation of Holland he took a strong stand in favour of the freedom of the press. For him the dignity of the human person could never be sacrificed for ideological and political reasons.
As a result he became a martyr in the concentration camp in Dachau.
Encountering God in the Abyss (2002) is translated from the Dutch by John Vriend.
About the author: Fr Constant Dölle was also from Friesland. Titus Brandsma loved to stop by at the Dölles to talk with Constant's mother. Constant Dölle, seven years old at the time, saw a simple man who inspired confidence, who had an interest in the family and was good to have contact with. Looking back, he said:
He is a person you can absolutely trust. That is possible only if that person believes in God. For then he can surrender himself, let himself go, and say: 'let things happen as You want them to.' With such a person, you can take your chances, because he does not give priority to his own interests. With a person like that you will never end up holding the bag.
He was ordained to the priesthood on 12 July 1942 and celebrated his first mass on the first Sunday in August of that year. On that Sunday they learned that Titus Brandsma had died in Dachau on 26 July. Although Dölle never became a Brandsma specialist, Titus did play a role throughout his entire life. Yet it is no accident that he learned to know Titus Brandsma in his youth and has now written a book about him. He himself calls this "a kind of divine dispensation by which things happen as they do."
I marvel at the fact that I also became a Carmelite 'by accident.' In 1985, I 'accidentally' wrote my first book about Titus Brandsma. The person who had been assigned to do this for the beatification said: 'I dread this job and feel sick about the whole thing.' Then the authorities got me involved and the job had to be done in three months. Nor was it my idea to write a book about him now. Things regularly come my way from others.
In fact, a short time after he started writing the present book, Fr Constant Dölle slowly became almost completely blind. In that way, writing Titus Brandsma's biography became a process of reconciling himself to his own situation of aging and becoming blind, and a spiritual process which yielded insight.
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