The following piece was written and delivered by Erin Greco at Gutenberg’s annual school Christmas Dinner on December 5, 2025. (Photo by Brian Julian.)
We struggle to believe it.
It takes time
—maybe a long time
—maybe a lifetime
To see the truth, though some part of us has longed for it since we first drew breath:
The Light is real.
Our understanding of it, our vision for it, our tolerance for its presence, must grow,
but it is there—
Even when it’s shrouded in grief and pain—or numbness, or distraction,
Even when people claiming to carry it spread utter darkness instead,
Even when we discover, to our sorrow, the places we have spread darkness, too.
The Light is real.
As Zechariah proclaimed with his re-opened voice just months before Jesus’s birth (echoing Isaiah from hundreds of years before him):
The dawn from on high will visit us
to shine on those who live in darkness and the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.
And as John wrote decades later, beginning his beautiful testimony:
The true light, that gives light to everyone,
was coming into the world.
And as Jesus said, His words recorded in that same work:
I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness,
but will have the light of life.
We feel the darkness;
We struggle to believe.
But the Light is real.
And because of this—
Because of our desire to see the darkness overcome,
Because of our belief that it will be,
We link hands with millennia of light-bearers before us,
joining our voices to theirs as we testify:
The true light is coming; it has come.
He approaches; He is here.
And He is real.
This article first appeared in the Winter 2026 issue of Colloquy, Gutenberg College’s free quarterly newsletter. Subscribe here.
