Today we begin with the whole Church a new Liturgical Year with the first Sunday of Advent. A time of hope, a time in which the memory of the first coming of the Lord is renewed in our hearts, in humility and concealment, and the longing for the return of Christ in glory and majesty is renewed.
This Sunday of Advent is deeply marked by a call to vigilance. Saint Mark includes in the words of Jesus the command to “watch” up to three times. And the third time he does so with solemnity: "What I say to you, I say to all: Watch!" (Mk 13,37). It is not only an ascetic recommendation, but a call to live as children of the light and of the day.
This call is addressed not only to his disciples, but to all men and women of good will, as an exhortation that reminds us that life does not only have an earthly dimension, but is projected towards an “afterlife”. The human being, created in the image and semblance of God, endowed with freedom and responsibility, capable of loving, will have to give an account of his life, of how he has developed the capacities and talents that he has received from God; if he has kept them selfishly, or if he has made them bear fruit for the glory of God and at the service of his brothers.
The fundamental disposition that we have to live and the virtue that we have to exercise is hope. Advent is, par excellence, the time of hope, and the entire Church is called to live in hope and to become a sign of hope for the world. We are preparing to commemorate Christmas, the beginning of His coming: the Incarnation, the Nativity, his passage through earth. But Jesus has never left us; it remains with us in various ways until the end of time. For this reason, "with Jesus Christ joy is always born and reborn!" (Pope Francis).