I've posted these before, but they're good enough to repeat:
Max Beerbohm once said, “I may be old-fashioned, but I am right.” They're good words to recall at this time of the year. After all, we tend to mark the holidays with things old fashioned, and we consider the holidays the most wonderful time of the year. There may be a connection there.
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Robert Bridges once wrote to Gerard Manley Hopkins, asking how he (Bridges) could possibly learn to believe. He probably expected some metaphysical analysis, but Hopkins simply responded, “Give alms.” It's not a bad lesson for the Christmas season.
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“For while all things were in quiet silence and the night was in the midst of her course, thy almighty word leapt down from heaven from thy royal throne.” Book of Wisdom.
[This] passage, brimming with the mystery of the Incarnation, is wonderfully expressive of the infinite stillness that hovered over Christ's birth. For the greatest things are accomplished in silence”“not in the clamor and display of superficial eventfulness, but in deep clarity of inner vision; in the almost imperceptible start of decision, in quiet overcoming and hidden sacrifice. . . . The silent forces are the strong forces.
Romano Guardini
