"While gentle silence enveloped all things," reads the Wisdom of Solomon, "and night in its swift course was half gone, your all-powerful Word leaped from heaven into the midst of the land that was doomed." Faith is not a frantic reaching out to God, grasping at promised straws of salvation. Faith is an act of welcome; it is a gentle silence that embraces a divine mystery that has already come to us, is now coming, and will always come in time and through eternity. This sacred season proclaims the Light who leaps through eternity. This sacred season proclaims the Light who leaps into our lives even when darkest night reigns. It celebrates the Word of glad tidings that announces the end of quiet doom and despair.
Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, what'ere you may believe.
There is an inmost centre in us all,
Where truth abides in fulness; and around,
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,
This perfect, clear perception -- which is truth ...
and to KNOW,
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without.