My message to you on this first Sunday of Advent is this:

Try to remember, even the smallest flame can pierce the deepest darkness.

♦

First light. First hope.

Hope looks like a small flame cupped between shaking hands.

She feels like a breath you didn’t know you still had in you — warm, fragile, but real.

She doesn’t always promise miracles, but she whispers, “not yet over.”

She isn’t born from us — she’s given to us.

She moves through us, but doesn’t belong to us.

That’s why she can come in the deepest dark and stay steady when we shake.

She doesn’t depend on our strength; we depend on hers.

She’s not something we build from courage, but it takes a lot of courage to open our hearts for her.

She’s something that visits, quietly, from above, deep within us —

a whisper, a breath, a will not our own.

So let us listen to this special time of Advent, as we await her,

and Him – our Prince of Peace.