The greatest power

What is it really that we should write in our hearts —
the feeling that we may have on this Christmas night?

     In this Christmas night there should pour into our hearts
the fundamental human feeling of love,
the fundamental feeling that says:

compared with all other forces and powers and treasures of the world,
the treasures and the power and the force of love are the greatest,
the most intense, the most powerful.

There should pour into our hearts, into our souls, the feeling that
Wisdom is a great thing — but love is still greater;
Might is a great thing — but love is yet greater.

And this feeling of the power and force and strength of love
should pour into our hearts so strongly
that from this Christmas night something may overflow
into all our feelings during the rest of the year,

So that we may truthfully say at all times: we must really be ashamed,
if in any hour of the year we do anything that cannot hold good
when the spirit gazes into that night
in which we would pour the all-power of love into our hearts.

May it be possible for the days and the hours of the year to pass in such a way
that we need not be ashamed of them in the light of the feeling
that we would pour into our souls on Christmas night!

— Thoughts on Christmas Eve, Rudolf Steiner, Berlin, 24th of December, 1912.