WINTER LIGHT

OLR Chapel in Winter

To those who are not used to it, life in the Pacific NW  can get a bit gloomy in December, especially when it rains day after day.  I think it is no coincidence that the Church chooses to  celebrate the coming of the Light at this time when all things appear to be “dead”.  It is in the silence that He chose to come to us- not in the garish summer’s heat.  Advent reminds us to wait, to hope, just as we await the signs of spring after a cold, dark winter. It is the time of longing, of anticipation that we will be freed of the darkness in our lives. 

St Maximus Bishop of Turin (5^th Century) an outstanding Biblical scholar and preacher revered for his writings wrote: “ The depressing shortness of the days itself testifies to the imminence of some event which will bring about the betterment of a world urgently longing for a brighter sun to dispel its darkness. In spite of fearing that its course may be terminated within a few brief hours, the world still shows signs of hope that its yearly cycle will once more be renewed. And if creation feels this hope, it persuades us also to hope that Christ will come like a new sunrise to shed light on the darkness of our sins, and that the Sun of Justice, in the vigor of his new birth, will dispel the long night of guilt from our hearts.”

Sunrise from Monastery