In the waiting hour of twilight, my grandfather taught me about silence. We fished in a small rowboat on the lake until after the moon rose glistening in the water. He explained the rules of fishing, "Bait your own hook, sit still, and don't talk or you will disturb the fish." Each trip was the same. We left behind the cottage and, as we detached ourselves farther and farther from shore a new peace came to us. One time his voice entered the silence saying, "If you listen really hard, God will tell you stories." I listened, and he was right. My mind envisioned new and exciting "somedays" and I came close to tears in the face of the starry night's beauty.
"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.