The Promise Foretold — The Proto-Evangelium
Advent begins in the dark. Before shepherds and angels, before the child in the manger, there is the stillness of a garden. Humanity falls — and yet, even in judgment, God speaks a promise:
> “I will put enmity between you and the woman,
> between your seed and her seed;
> he shall bruise your head,
> and you shall bruise his heel.”
The Fathers called this *the Proto-evangelium* — the *first Gospel*. In that single verse, light breaks through the ruin. The seed of the woman will crush the serpent’s head. Evil will not have the last word.
From Eden to Abraham, from David to Mary, the story unfolds as the slow fulfilment of this first promise. The “seed” passes through barren wombs and broken hearts until the Word Himself takes flesh. The woman’s “yes” becomes the world’s salvation.
The Cross bruises the heel — but there the serpent’s power is shattered. As St Ephrem wrote, *“Death swallowed what it thought was earthly and met God; it was undone.”* The manger and the Cross are carved from the same wood: divine love entering the dust to redeem it from within.
Advent begins here — in longing, in the holy darkness before dawn. It is not nostalgia but promise, not escape but renewal. We wait, as creation once waited, for the Word to be born anew among us.
The garden is not forgotten. The seed still grows. The light still shines in the darkness — and the darkness cannot overcome it.