Tonight, the monastery grows quieter, as if the stone itself is listening. Outside, the fields lie dark and bare, the kind of stillness that belongs to winter and waiting. Inside, we do very little — and that is the point. Christmas does not arrive with noise or force. It comes as it always has: gently, almost unnoticed, asking only for space.
For us, this night echoes the heart of the Cistercian way. God chooses the small, the hidden, the unremarkable. Not power, but nearness. Not display, but presence. The child laid in a feeding trough reminds us that holiness is not distant or refined — it is close enough to touch, close enough to breathe beside us. In the cold and the dark, God does not solve everything; he simply comes and stays.
As we keep vigil, we hold the world quietly before God — its wounds, its weariness, its hope. We do not rush to tomorrow. We remain here, attentive, trusting that even now, in places that seem empty or forgotten, something unspeakably gentle is being born.