Since 1989, President Leo J. O'Donovan, S.J., has written annual Advent messages that The Washington Post has published each Christmas Day on its editorial page. In these messages, O'Donovan has mixed the current events of each preceding year, images from poetry and the visual arts, his own story, and the hope represented by Christ and Christmas. This year, he will write the final Advent message of his Georgetown presidency. The following are excerpts from O'Donovan's published messages of the past 11 years. The Christmas season can have an easy glamour to it.
Stores invest in glitz and sparkle.
It doesn't work, not really. Life without enchantment is undesirable, and in the end impossible. Without our yearnings and the things that prompt them, everything folds up. From first to last we are hankerers and hungerers. And to this the Christmas story answers.