The Child We Wait For, by Francis X. Maier

Advent is a time of preparation for the Christ Child at Christmas.  But in an age of endless appetites and distractions, it’s worth reflecting on who exactly that Child is.

I visited Poland as a young editor in 1989, a decade after Karol Wojtyla’s first visit to his homeland as Pope John Paul II, and just months before the Soviet-backed regime collapsed.  I still remember how bleak it seemed.  Many of Warsaw’s buildings stood on foundations two or three feet higher than the street.  The reason was simple.  The retreating Germans had literally leveled most of the city in 1944 as an act of pure malice.  The devastation they left was massive.  It was so costly to clear away in the war’s aftermath that new structures in Warsaw were simply built on top of the rubble.

The scars this left on Polish culture ran deep.  The city’s skyline – to the degree it existed – was dominated by two structures.  The first was the mausoleum-like Communist Party headquarters.  ….

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