In darkness and the gloom of these shortest days of the year, we pray for Christ's nearness, even as we know he is never far. He is always, always with us, within us. Still, in these days we want to deepen our desire, stoke our yearning, remembering with broken hearts our desperate need for the God who dwells within. We pray then for attentiveness to the One who is always and everywhere "toward us," drawing us to himself. We beg to be more and more deliberate in our awareness of our own desperate desire for him and his even more desperate longing for us. For as Saint Augustine reminds us, God thirsts to be thirsted after.