Consider the first Advent candle, which we light when the days are shortest and the nights are longest. If we were being entirely reasonable about it, this would be exactly the wrong time to speak of hope. It would be like planting a garden in winter

In our upside-down world, shadows are counted more substantial than sunlight, and darkness more real than dawn. Yet Christianity offers a startling reversal: a divine madness that transforms the darkest night into the brightest day, where even the deepest shadows bow before the light.