Advent horizon

I'm on a book deadline. I barely have time to eat, let alone think. Then, there's Christmas, my golden, out of town friend with whom I snatch dances in between crazed typing. Life is never very sane, but I think I like it anyway. In the midst of my flurry, I snatch at "snowball cookies" and carols and late afternoons by the Christmas tree when the light outdoors turns blue and the room seems to glitter with stars. And I read my Advent books. The following bit is a piece that never fails to grip my heart. Each year, I read it again and feel like one of the wise men, following a star down a long dark night. I look ahead to the long black of the horizon and see just a hint of the dawn that is all I have hoped it will be. I hope your Sunday is a sweet one.

Let us then live in today's Advent, for it is the time of promise. To eyes that do not see, it still seems that the final dice are being cast down in these valleys, on these battlefields, in those camps and prisons and bomb shelters. Those who are awake sense the working of the other powers and can await the coming of their hour. Space is still filled with the noise of destruction and annihilation, the shouts of self-assurance and arrogance, the weeping of despair and helplessness. But just beyond the horizon the eternal realities stand silent in their age-old longing. There shines on us the first mild light of the radiant fulfillment to come. From afar sound the first notes as of pipes and singing boys, not yet discernible as a song or melody. It is all far off still, and only just announced and foretold. But it is happening. This is today. And tomorrow the angels will tell what has happened with loud rejoicing voices, and we shall know it and be glad, if we have believed and trusted in Advent.

-Alfred Delp (to read the full text, click here.)