God, I cry to you in the early morning,

help me to pray and to gather my thoughts:

I cannot do it alone.

It is dark inside me, but you do not leave me.

I am timid, but with you is my help.

I am anxious, but with you is peace.

There is bitterness inside me, 

but with you is patience.

I do not understand your ways, 

but you know the right way for me.

Lord Jesus Christ,

you were poor and miserable, 

caught and abandoned like me.

You know all the sorrow of humanity.

You stay with me, when nobody stays with me.

You never forget me, and you search for me.

You want me to recognise you and turn to you.

Lord, I hear your call and follow.

Help me.

This prayer was written in Cell 93 at Tegel Prison, North Berlin, pictured above. The Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote it there for his fellow prisoners. Three years earlier, on the day Hitler came to power, Bonhoeffer had spoken out publicly against the tyranny overtaking Germany and spent the next few years struggling to be true to his faith while resisting the Nazi regime in every possible way. It could not tolerate his resistance. Imprisoned from 1943, he was eventually tried for treason and hanged on 9 April 1945 just two weeks before the war ended.

In profoundly inspiring ways, Bonhoeffer’s life and death reveal the cost of discipleship and it’s especially moving to be marking his readiness to ‘take up his own cross’ (Luke 9.23) as we stand on Holy Week’s threshold. Sometime this week, you may like to spend an hour watching the recording of Tenebrae: The Passion of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Through word and symbol, silence and music, this is a powerful interweaving of the Passion of Christ with Bonhoeffer’s own.

“The deep meaning of the cross of Christ,” he once said, “is that there is no suffering on earth that is not borne by God.” Praying his prayer today, we can hold in its humanity and honesty, and in the depth of its trust, all who are currently in prison for challenging inhumane regimes.