MY husband and I went for a walk last night in the winter darkness. Many houses in the neighborhood were decorated with ropes of Christmas lights, as I’m sure they were where you live. On one house, the roof of a second-floor addition was lighted up and we wondered how the elderly man who lives there got the lights so high. He must have hired someone to do it. People go to extraordinary lengths and expense to hang lights. I know of one man who got up on the roof and … well, maybe it wasn’t worth it.

These artificial lights are often festive and cheerful. But they are only outer lights — inferior to the inner lights which appear one by one in the night of Advent. They glimmer and brighten as Christmas approaches. In the blackest black, in the dark so dark, beautiful balls of fire dangle from the roof of the soul. They illuminate lonely highways and byways. Seen, but unseen.

Exert, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy power and come, succour us by thy great might: that by the assistance of thy grace, thy indulgent mercy may hasten what is delayed by our sins: who livest and reignest God, world without end.

[Collect from the Fourth Sunday of Advent]

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