As we celebrate Advent and Christmas, we flex the muscles of a new season, a new year, a new life which His resurrection and our baptisms have bestowed upon us.

God makes all things new. He refashions us from those turned in upon ourselves, turned to idols of our own choice and making, to experience the freedom He gives by pronouncing us His righteous children.

As we close out an old year, Saint Silvester can remind us God is the Lord of history and He has used and is using even people whose lives sink largely or totally into obscurity to keep the confession of our faith in Jesus Christ alive.