Some years ago, a colleague mentioned that a particular Amy Grant song “starts playing in her head earlier and earlier each year.” It is the song entitled, “I Need a Silent Night” from Grant’s album "The Christmas Collection."

Here is the refrain:

I need a silent night / A holy night
To hear an angel voice / through the chaos and the noise
I need a midnight clear / A little peace right here
To end this crazy day / With a Silent Night

Since Christmas has been co-opted by the culture at large, one thing the Church can offer is an alternative way to experience the season. That alternative, at least during Advent, has to do with waiting and watching, with listening, with being quiet and still.

Crossing the threshold from the malls and stalls of the market, we are invited into a place where ancient prophecies and flickering candles beckon us to shift our focus. Simple rituals and family observances invite us to slow down, to be attentive to one another and to God.

We all need a little peace, a space for wonder and joy, and to end our harried days of toil and stress with a silent night, a holy night.

That’s what the season of Advent prepares us for: a holy night when God does the unexpected and comes into the world in flesh and blood. Jesus, the Light of the World, breaks through the darkness of that holy night and changes everything, promising to shine in the world and in our hearts forever.

This Advent and Christmas, Foundry will once again be bustling and busy. But in the midst of it all, here and there, now and again, there will be moments of silence, beckonings of the holy, invitations to be held in the peace and calm of God, and to be guided by the brightness of hope, the hope that has come to us and to this world as light, as perfect love.

Cross the threshold and enter with joy and wonder into a silent night.

See you there,

ginger+