Spring can seem far off in these darkest days of our year. Yet at Christmas, the days are already imperceptibly growing longer and brighter.
In the life of the Church, in times like our own marked by dark shadows, there is also a new springtime imperceptibly under way. In his apostolic exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate, Pope Francis repeated a remarkable statement by St Edith Stein. “The greatest figures of prophecy and sanctity,” she wrote, “step forth in the darkest night … the most decisive turning points in world history are substantially co-determined by souls whom no history book ever mentions.” In other words, beneath the surface of history, it is those who strive for holiness who bring about real change and resolve the crises of time.
