The dream of peace
deepens as darkness
settles on the violent world.
Was there a Christ, or not?
Did a son of God walk the earth?
Did the law give way to mercy?
We put the questions aside,
pining for innocence, watching
the homeless in our streets,
the hungry throughout the world,
the dead on their battlefields,
wishing it were not so. Is wish
enough? The heart is an inn
with enough room inside it
for those with nowhere to rest.
Open it, whispers something.
Or, for believers, someone.
But behind our shut doors
in rooms full of presents
who can remember the stranger?
Now is the time we must turn.
And if not? Look: the manger
is empty. Jesus cannot be born.
—Peter Marin, S.B.