[Circular Letter, Advent-Christmas, 1967]
The times are difficult.
They call for courage and faith.
Faith is in the end a lonely virtue.
Lonely especially where a deep authentic community of love is not an accomplished fact, but a job to be begun over and over...
Love is not something we get from Mother Church as a child gets milk from the breast: it also has to be given.
We don't get love if don't give any.
Christmas, then, is not just a sweet regression to breast-feeding and infancy.
It is a serious and sometimes difficult feast.
Difficult especially if, for psychological reasons, we fail to grasp the indestructible kernel of hope that is in it.
If we are just looking for a little consolation-we may be disappointed.
Let us pray for one another, love one another in truth, in the sobriety of earnest, Christian hope: for hope, says Paul, does not deceive.
A blessed and joyous Christmas to all of you.
Thomas Merton, The Road to Joy
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