Today is Gaudete Sunday, and I find myself once more in the third week of Advent. Most every Catholic knows that this is a season of hopeful preparation, of joyfully anticipating the re-birth of the Christ Child in our hearts at Christmas. This season, as I feel harried and rushed by many obligations, I look back on a little sonnet I wrote last year.

Poetry has always been a fun creative outlet for me, and this piece came so easily to me as I wrote it in front of the Tabernacle before attending a choral performance. I hope you enjoy it during this last full week of Advent, and may it bring you, dear reader, a little closer to the Child who guided my hand and my heart that day…

Purple candle, pink candle, glowing bright
'Round the wreath upon the kitchen table
Lights hope in my heart on this snowy night
That perhaps I can approach the stable.
How can I dare to call Jesus my own,
When my sins have warranted such a price?
Yet He calls me near to His manger-throne, 
And His love melts my heart, once cold as ice. 
In the bleak darkness my poor soul was lost, 
But my Messiah doesn't count the cost.