Waiting · Fidelity · Endurance
Winter does not announce itself.
It arrives as a veil.
The days shorten. Light withdraws early. The world grows quiet, as though listening. Cold sharpens the edges of things, and familiar landscapes take on a strange clarity — bare, still, almost luminous. It is a season that feels slightly removed from ordinary time, as though the year has stepped closer to eternity.
This is the season of hidden endurance. Growth continues, but unseen. Fields lie fallow. Trees stand stripped and watchful, not defeated, but waiting. The world seems paused — and yet nothing has ceased.
In story and imagination, winter has always been a threshold. The place where one world thins into another. Snow-covered roads, deep forests, distant lights in the dark — these are not merely settings, but signs. Winter reminds us that reality is larger than what we can see.
In the rhythm of the Church, winter carries the long discipline of Ordinary Time, lived after the blaze of Christmas has faded. Faith here is steady rather than radiant. Prayer is quieter, deeper. The work is not to feel, but to remain.
Winter teaches us how to keep watch when the world feels hushed — how to trust that unseen things are being prepared beyond the veil.
It is a season of:
- watchfulness and waiting
- endurance beyond comfort
- mystery and fidelity
- hope held in darkness
The months that follow trace winter’s strange labour — from the deep stillness of mid-winter to the first, almost imperceptible signs that the year is turning again.
“Always winter and never Christmas.” — C. S. Lewis