Advent, God’s visit: God enters my life and wants to speak to me. In our daily lives, we all have the experience of having little time for the Lord and little time for ourselves. We end up being absorbed by what needs to be “done”. Isn’t it true that often, it’s precisely the activity that takes hold of us, society and its many interests that monopolize our attention? Isn’t it true that we devote a lot of time to entertainment and distractions of all kinds? Sometimes things “overwhelm” us.
Advent invites us to pause in silence to understand a presence. It’s an invitation to understand that every event of the day is a sign from God, a sign of his concern for each of us. How often God lets us perceive a sign of his love! Keeping a kind of “inner diary” of this love would be a beautiful and salutary duty for our lives!
Advent invites and encourages us to contemplate the Lord present. Shouldn’t the certainty of his presence help us to see the world with different eyes? Shouldn’t it help us to see our whole existence as a “visit”, as a way in which He can come to us and become close to us, in every situation?
Advent is waiting (a fundamental element), a waiting that is, at the same time, hope. […] Hope marks the path of humanity, but for Christians it is animated by a certainty: the Lord is present throughout our lives, he accompanies us, and one day he will also wipe away our tears. One day soon, everything will find its fulfillment in the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of justice and peace.
If time is not filled with a meaningful present, waiting can become unbearable; if we wait for something, but for the moment there’s nothing, i.e. if the present remains empty, each passing moment seems excessively long, and waiting becomes too heavy a burden, because the future remains completely uncertain.
When, on the other hand, time takes on meaning, and in every moment we perceive something specific and worthwhile, then the joy of waiting makes the present more precious.
Let’s live intensely in the present, where the Lord’s gifts are already coming to us, and let’s live it projected towards the future, a future full of hope. In this way, Christian Advent becomes an opportunity to awaken in us the true meaning of waiting, by returning to the heart of our faith, which is the mystery of Christ, the Messiah awaited for long centuries and born in the poverty of Bethlehem. By coming among us, he has given us, and continues to give us, the gift of his love and salvation. Present among us, he speaks to us in different ways: in Sacred Scripture, in the liturgical year, in the saints, in the events of daily life, in all creation, which changes its appearance according to whether He is present behind it, or whether it is clouded by the fog of an uncertain origin and an uncertain future. In turn, we can speak to him, presenting the sufferings that afflict us, the impatience, the questions that spring from our hearts. Let’s be sure that He always listens to us! And if Jesus is present, there is no such thing as empty, meaningless time. If He is present, we can continue to hope even when others can no longer give us any support, even when the present becomes difficult.
Advent is the time of the presence and expectation of eternity. Precisely for this reason, it is, in a special way, a time of joy, an internalized joy that no suffering can erase. The joy of the fact that God became a child. This joy, invisibly present within us, encourages us to move forward with confidence. The Virgin Mary, through whom the Infant Jesus was given to us, is the model and support of this profound joy. May she obtain for us, faithful followers of her Son, the grace to live this liturgical season vigilant and active in expectation. We pray Amen!
Benedict XVI, November 28, 2009.
