In dark times we pray desperate prayers.  To be desperate is to be right on the knife’s edge of death and a miracle.  In our darkest moments it is a wonder how much faith we can muster- in our hopelessness there is so much hope.

Advent is a dark time- a winter of discontent, a black hole, a dark night.  Wise men know what to do when a star appears in a desperate sky.

If we are truth tellers we know that advent is for the hopeless, the desperate, the poor, the blind, the laborer. The sinner. Christ comes in the cave of our hearts, right in the midst of the wild beasts.  Our only hope- to welcome him as best we can- as we are- in fear. The light will penetrate the dark.  The black.  And it will hurt.

This is an advent of the soul waiting in hopeless hope.

He is the Tradition.  A light shining in the darkness.  A constant. Permanent. A star that appears as an absolute sign.  Christ is our Tradition- our Star- our Hope.

Christmas is miraculous.  And miracles come to the hurting, the dying, the desperate, the broken, the poor, the hopeless.

The advent of hope comes in darkness.

I have passed my life ever in night, for the night of sin has
been to me thick fog and darkness; but make me, O Savior,
a son of the day.
-The Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete