Advent 2019 – Day 23

From Fleming Rutledge’s Advent:

“I asked my mother yesterday to tell me why, in our family when I was growing up, we did not decorate our house until Christmas Eve. I knew the answer, of course—we were conscientious Episcopalians—but I wanted to hear what she would say. She surprised me. She said, ‘I think Christmas should come in a burst.’ Exactly. Auden writes, ‘Nothing can save us that is possible.’ The human race cannot expect to receive any lasting comfort from the world. The comfort that we so desperately need must come from somewhere else—in a burst of transcendent power breaking upon our ears from beyond our sphere altogether.”