The quietude of Christmas

I spent Christmas with family, and later in the day thought I would spend time in town before heading to visit with friends.

It was deserted.

I don’t know what I was expecting, given that it was freezing.

But I think I was expecting exactly this, given the hour… just at evening and not into the night.

Le Petit Theatre, recently closed, has been struggling of late. I remember standing on the balcony the Friday after 9/11 joining in the candlelight vigil in the plaza.

I also thought of Benjamin Britton’s ‘A Ceremony of Carols’, especially the piece ‘In Freezing Winter Night’.

Christmas, always the beginning of a time of wonder… and the quietude of Christmas can be wonderful if we allow God to speak to us through it.

Fr. Kenneth Allen