Paperback: In the absence of human satisfaction, one achieves the complete surrender to God's providence, and thus to God. Lack of everything that is needed to live creates more room for the Mysterious. I must confess that every now and then I look back to those difficult years with some feeling of nostalgia. Never have I felt closer to God. The electrified barbed wire could not prevent God from reaching us. - Raphael Tijhuis OCarm
On 25 July 1940, while helping to prepare for the celebration of Mass, Brother Raphael was arrested by the Gestapo police of the Nazi regime. The charges were based on seemingly inconsequential comments Rafael had written in letters back to family and friends in the Netherlands. His arrest began a five-year journey through a series of jails and prison camps and ended in the dreaded Dachau concentration camp.
However, for Raphael, the years of his imprisonment were a purification of his faith. Despite being forced to exist in dreadful places of hatred, violence and death, Raphael experienced powerful moments of God's mercy and attained a sense of God's presence he never experienced before or after.
Today the sacristy in Mainz where Raphael received word that the Gestapo were waiting to arrest him is the chapel of the Carmelite community.
Nothing Can Stop God From Reaching Us was first published in 2007 with its second printing in 2009.
About the author: Raphael Tijhuis OCarm was born on 10 October 1913 in Rijssen, the Netherlands, the youngest of three sons. After becoming an apprentice painter, he joined the Carmelite Order, making his simple profession on 30 August 1933 in Merkelbeek. Shortly thereafter, he was sent to Mainz, Germany, to serve what was supposed to be the humble life of a brother in the Carmelite community there. Brother Rafael Tijhuis died on 5 June 1981 in Mainz, Germany.
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