2:1 The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 2:2 In days to come the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. 2:3 Many peoples shall come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. 2:4 He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. 2:5 O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!
Psalm 122 1 I was glad when they said to me, "Let us go to the house of the LORD!" 2 Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem.3 Jerusalem built as a city that is bound firmly together. 4 To it the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD.
5 For there the thrones for judgment were set up, the thrones of the house of David. 6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: "May they prosper who love you. 7 Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers." 8 For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, "Peace be within you." 9 For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your good.
Romans 13:11-14 13:11 Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; 12 the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; 13 let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
GOSPEL Matthew 24:36-44 36 "But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, 39 and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. 41 Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. 42 Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.
43 But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.
FAUSTI - "Then stay awake", Jesus says to the disciples who ask Him " when" will be the end of the world, and "the signs" that predict the judgment of God. We can say that "when" is always the "simple daily custom"; in it God's judgment operates. Christianity is not an anesthetic which makes us forget the present evil in the illusion of a future good. Instead, it is an enlightenment that shows us reality and makes us assume it with intelligence and responsibility, in anticipation of a positive objective. Aware of the present time, we awake and live as children of light. He who has discernment, in the travails just described, sees the One Who is coming... In "this generation" as in every other, the mystery of His Cross and Glory is fulfilled. His Word comes true with certainty, but it does not say the day and the hour, because every day and every hour comes, for those who have their eyes open. We must be vigilant, because His coming (as a judgment of salvation) always happens in the present moment: at the same time and doing the same things, they can, like Noah, build the ark that saves or be overwhelmed by the flood that swallows. Salvation or damnation depends on "how" these things are lived daily. The enlightened man lives everything as a son and as a brother in thanksgiving: "Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God," says Paul (1 Cor 10:31). The blind person sees these things not as a gift from God, but as an object that is to be possessed. In the end there is always a flood (7:24-27). We are mortals. What is built on the Word of God bears like the ark, what is built on our madness collapses, covered by water. Discernment and vigilance need us to see Emmanuel, Who is always with us. He who awaits Him and recognizes Him, in deed and not only in words, meets Him as the Bridegroom who comes. Otherwise He would be like the thief who bursts into the house. Discernment and vigilance, in turn, become every day a daily activity faithful to His Word, on which the eternal future depends. Jesus, instead of predicting the future, sends us back... to read the present in the light of His history. With Him time is fulfilled (Mk 1:15) and the possibility of living it fully is offered to us. In fact, God's future judgment on me is nothing more than my present judgment on Him: I do it here and now in recognizing it or not in my brother. The Church is "enlightened" is not like those of the night, but always remains vigilant and sober. In our daily work we decide salvation or perdition, being with Him or far from Him, receiving a blessing or a curse. Life or death depends on if we do or not make the "Word" that the Lord gives, He, is looking at us. In the end, what was sown before is collected. "Watch" is the conclusion to which all the discourse made so far leads, developed later on on the "how" to look at. Whoever considers himself "master" and believes he possesses himself, his life, his work, his goods, lives in the deception of a dream that fades at dawn. Ready is he who does not know "master" but "faithful and wise servant" who knows and does what the Lord has told him.
ANGELUS - I Sunday of ADVENT S. JOHN. PAUL II With today's First Sunday of ADVENT, a new liturgical year begins. The CHURCH resumes its WAY and invites us to reflect more intensely on the mystery of Christ, an ever new mystery that time cannot exhaust. Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Thanks to Him, the HISTORY OF HUMANITY proceeds as a PILGRIMAGE toward the fulfillment of the Kingdom, which He Himself inaugurated with His incarnation and His victory over sin and death. Therefore, ADVENT is synonymous of HOPE: not vain WAITING for a faceless god, but concrete and certain trust in the return of the One who has already visited us, of the "Bridegroom" who in His blood sealed with humanity a pact of eternal covenant. It is a HOPE that encourages vigilance, a characteristic virtue of this singular liturgical season. Vigilance in prayer, animated by loving WAITING; vigilance in the dynamism of concrete CHARITY, aware that the Kingdom of God is coming nearer where men learn to live as brothers. With these sentiments, the Christian community enters the ADVENT, keeping the spirit alert, to better receive the message of God's Word. Resounding in the liturgy today is the celebrated and stupendous oracle of the prophet Isaiah, spoken at a time of crisis in Israel's HISTORY. "In the end of days," says the Lord, "the mountain of the TEMPLE of the Lord / shall be erected on the top of the mountains and shall be higher than the hills; / to it shall flow all the nations... / They shall forge their swords into plowshares, their spears into sickles; / one people shall not lift up the sword against another people any more, / they shall not practice the art of WAR any more" (Is 2:1-5). These words contain a promise of PEACE more relevant than ever for humanity...
ANGELUS, 2 December 2007 Dear Brothers and Sisters, With this first Sunday of Advent a new liturgical year begins: the People of God begin again on the way to living the mystery of Christ in history. Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever (cf. Heb 13: 8); history, instead, changes and requires constant evangelization; it needs to be renewed from within and the only true novelty is Christ: he is its fulfilment, the luminous future of humanity and of the world. Risen from the dead, Jesus is the Lord to whom God subjects all enemies, including death itself (cf. I Cor 15: 25-28). Advent is therefore the propitious time to awaken in our hearts the expectation of he "who is and who was and who is to come" (Rv 1: 8). The Son of God has already come to Bethlehem about 20 centuries ago, he comes in each moment in the soul and in the community disposed to receive him, he will come again at the end of time "to judge the living and the dead". The believer is therefore always vigilant, inspired by the intimate hope of encountering the Lord, as the Psalm says: "I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning" (Ps 130[129]: 5-6).
This Sunday is therefore a day specially suited to offering the entire Church and to all men and women of good will my second Encyclical, which I wanted to dedicate precisely to the theme of Christian hope. It is entitled Spe Salvi, because it opens with the expression "Spe salvi facti sumus - in hope we were saved" (Rm 8: 24). In this, as in other passages of the New Testament, the word "hope" is strictly connected with the word "faith". It is a gift that changes the life of the one who receives it, as the experience of so many men and women saints demonstrates. In what does this hope consist, so great and so "trustworthy", to make us say that in it we have "salvation"? In essence it consists in the knowledge of God, in the discovery of the heart of the good and merciful Father. Jesus, with his death on the Cross and his Resurrection, has revealed his Face to us, the face of a God so great in love as to communicate to us an uncrushable hope that not even death can break, because the life of the one who entrusts himself to this Father opens itself to the prospect of eternal beatitude.
The development of modern science has always confined faith and hope to the private and individual sphere, so that today it appears in a clear and sometimes dramatic way that man and the world need God - the true God! - otherwise, they remain deprived of hope. Science contributes much to the good of humanity, but it is not able to redeem it. Man is redeemed by love, which makes one's personal and social life good and beautiful. This is why the great hope, the full and definitive one, is guaranteed by God who is love, by God who has visited us and has given us life in Jesus, and who will return at the end of time. We hope in Christ, we await him! With Mary, his Mother, the Church goes to meet her Spouse: she does so with works of charity, because hope, like faith, is demonstrated in love.
Today, the First Sunday of the Time of Advent, a new liturgical year begins. In these four weeks of Advent, the liturgy leads us to celebrate the Nativity of Jesus, while it reminds us that he comes into our lives every day, and will return gloriously at the end of time. This certainty enables us to look trustfully to the future, as we are invited to do by the prophet Isaiah, who with his inspired voice accompanies the entire Advent journey.
In today’s First Reading, Isaiah prophesies that “it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it” (Is 2:2). The temple of the Lord in Jerusalem is presented as the point of convergence and meeting of all peoples. After the Incarnation of the Son of God, Jesus revealed himself as the true temple. Therefore, the marvellous vision of Isaiah is a divine promise and impels us to assume an attitude of pilgrimage, of a journey towards Christ, the meaning and end of all history. Those who hunger and thirst for justice can only find it by following the ways of the Lord, while evil and sin come from the fact that individuals and social groups prefer to follow paths dictated by selfish interests, which cause conflict and war. Advent is the time to welcome the coming of Jesus, who comes as a messenger of peace to show us the ways of God.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus exhorts us to be ready for His coming: “Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming” (Mt 24:42). Keeping watch does not mean to have one’s eyes physically open, but to have one’s heart free and facing the right direction, ready to give and to serve. This is keeping watch! The slumber from which we must awaken is constituted of indifference, of vanity, of the inability to establish genuine human relationships, of the inability to take charge of our brother and sister who is alone, abandoned or ill. The expectation of Jesus who is coming must therefore translate into a commitment to vigilance. It is above all a question of wonder before God’s action, at his surprises, and of according him primacy. Vigilance also means, in a concrete sense, being attentive to our neighbour in difficulty, allowing oneself to be called upon by his needs, without waiting for him or her to ask us for help, but learning to foresee, to anticipate, as God always does with us.
May Mary, the vigilant Virgin and Mother of hope, guide us on this journey, helping us to turn our gaze towards the “mountain of the Lord”, the image of Jesus Christ, that attracts all men and all peoples.
Isaiah 2:1-5
RispondiElimina2:1 The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
2:2 In days to come the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it.
2:3 Many peoples shall come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
2:4 He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
2:5 O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!
Psalm 122
1 I was glad when they said to me, "Let us go to the house of the LORD!"
2 Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem.3 Jerusalem built as a city that is bound firmly together.
4 To it the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD.
5 For there the thrones for judgment were set up, the thrones of the house of David.
6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: "May they prosper who love you.
7 Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers."
8 For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, "Peace be within you."
9 For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your good.
Romans 13:11-14
13:11 Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers;
12 the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light;
13 let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy.
14 Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
GOSPEL Matthew 24:36-44
36 "But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
37 For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark,
39 and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man.
40 Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left.
41 Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.
42 Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.
43 But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.
44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.
FAUSTI - "Then stay awake", Jesus says to the disciples who ask Him " when" will be the end of the world, and "the signs" that predict the judgment of God.
RispondiEliminaWe can say that "when" is always the "simple daily custom"; in it God's judgment operates.
Christianity is not an anesthetic which makes us forget the present evil in the illusion of a future good. Instead, it is an enlightenment that shows us reality and makes us assume it with intelligence and responsibility, in anticipation of a positive objective.
Aware of the present time, we awake and live as children of light.
He who has discernment, in the travails just described,
sees the One Who is coming...
In "this generation" as in every other, the mystery of His Cross and Glory is fulfilled.
His Word comes true with certainty, but it does not say the day and the hour, because every day and every hour comes, for those who have their eyes open.
We must be vigilant, because His coming (as a judgment of salvation) always happens in the present moment: at the same time and doing the same things, they can, like Noah, build the ark that saves or be overwhelmed by the flood that swallows.
Salvation or damnation depends on "how" these things are lived daily.
The enlightened man lives everything as a son and as a brother in thanksgiving: "Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God," says Paul (1 Cor 10:31).
The blind person sees these things not as a gift from God, but as an object that is to be possessed.
In the end there is always a flood (7:24-27). We are mortals.
What is built on the Word of God bears like the ark, what is built on our madness collapses, covered by water.
Discernment and vigilance need us to see Emmanuel, Who is always with us.
He who awaits Him and recognizes Him, in deed and not only in words, meets Him as the Bridegroom who comes.
Otherwise He would be like the thief who bursts into the house.
Discernment and vigilance, in turn, become every day a daily activity faithful to His Word, on which the eternal future depends.
Jesus, instead of predicting the future, sends us back...
to read the present in the light of His history.
With Him time is fulfilled (Mk 1:15) and the possibility of living it fully is offered to us.
In fact, God's future judgment on me is nothing more than my present judgment on Him: I do it here and now in recognizing it or not in my brother.
The Church is "enlightened" is not like those of the night, but always remains vigilant and sober.
In our daily work we decide salvation or perdition, being with Him or far from Him, receiving a blessing or a curse.
Life or death depends on if we do or not make the "Word" that the Lord gives, He, is looking at us.
In the end, what was sown before is collected.
"Watch" is the conclusion to which all the discourse made so far leads, developed later on on the "how" to look at. Whoever considers himself "master" and believes he possesses himself, his life, his work, his goods, lives in the deception of a dream that fades at dawn.
Ready is he who does not know "master" but "faithful and wise servant" who knows and does what the Lord has told him.
ANGELUS - I Sunday of ADVENT S. JOHN. PAUL II
RispondiEliminaWith today's First Sunday of ADVENT, a new liturgical year begins. The CHURCH resumes its WAY and invites us to reflect more intensely on the mystery of Christ, an ever new mystery that time cannot exhaust. Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Thanks to Him, the HISTORY OF HUMANITY proceeds as a PILGRIMAGE toward the fulfillment of the Kingdom, which He Himself inaugurated with His incarnation and His victory over sin and death.
Therefore, ADVENT is synonymous of HOPE: not vain WAITING for a faceless god, but concrete and certain trust in the return of the One who has already visited us, of the "Bridegroom" who in His blood sealed with humanity a pact of eternal covenant. It is a HOPE that encourages vigilance, a characteristic virtue of this singular liturgical season. Vigilance in prayer, animated by loving WAITING; vigilance in the dynamism of concrete CHARITY, aware that the Kingdom of God is coming nearer where men learn to live as brothers.
With these sentiments, the Christian community enters the ADVENT, keeping the spirit alert, to better receive the message of God's Word. Resounding in the liturgy today is the celebrated and stupendous oracle of the prophet Isaiah, spoken at a time of crisis in Israel's HISTORY.
"In the end of days," says the Lord, "the mountain of the TEMPLE of the Lord / shall be erected on the top of the mountains and shall be higher than the hills; / to it shall flow all the nations... / They shall forge their swords into plowshares, their spears into sickles; / one people shall not lift up the sword against another people any more, / they shall not practice the art of WAR any more" (Is 2:1-5). These words contain a promise of PEACE more relevant than ever for humanity...
BENEDICT XVI
RispondiEliminaANGELUS, 2 December 2007
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
With this first Sunday of Advent a new liturgical year begins: the People of God begin again on the way to living the mystery of Christ in history. Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever (cf. Heb 13: 8); history, instead, changes and requires constant evangelization; it needs to be renewed from within and the only true novelty is Christ: he is its fulfilment, the luminous future of humanity and of the world. Risen from the dead, Jesus is the Lord to whom God subjects all enemies, including death itself (cf. I Cor 15: 25-28). Advent is therefore the propitious time to awaken in our hearts the expectation of he "who is and who was and who is to come" (Rv 1: 8). The Son of God has already come to Bethlehem about 20 centuries ago, he comes in each moment in the soul and in the community disposed to receive him, he will come again at the end of time "to judge the living and the dead". The believer is therefore always vigilant, inspired by the intimate hope of encountering the Lord, as the Psalm says: "I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning" (Ps 130[129]: 5-6).
This Sunday is therefore a day specially suited to offering the entire Church and to all men and women of good will my second Encyclical, which I wanted to dedicate precisely to the theme of Christian hope. It is entitled Spe Salvi, because it opens with the expression "Spe salvi facti sumus - in hope we were saved" (Rm 8: 24). In this, as in other passages of the New Testament, the word "hope" is strictly connected with the word "faith". It is a gift that changes the life of the one who receives it, as the experience of so many men and women saints demonstrates. In what does this hope consist, so great and so "trustworthy", to make us say that in it we have "salvation"? In essence it consists in the knowledge of God, in the discovery of the heart of the good and merciful Father. Jesus, with his death on the Cross and his Resurrection, has revealed his Face to us, the face of a God so great in love as to communicate to us an uncrushable hope that not even death can break, because the life of the one who entrusts himself to this Father opens itself to the prospect of eternal beatitude.
The development of modern science has always confined faith and hope to the private and individual sphere, so that today it appears in a clear and sometimes dramatic way that man and the world need God - the true God! - otherwise, they remain deprived of hope. Science contributes much to the good of humanity, but it is not able to redeem it. Man is redeemed by love, which makes one's personal and social life good and beautiful. This is why the great hope, the full and definitive one, is guaranteed by God who is love, by God who has visited us and has given us life in Jesus, and who will return at the end of time. We hope in Christ, we await him! With Mary, his Mother, the Church goes to meet her Spouse: she does so with works of charity, because hope, like faith, is demonstrated in love.
A good Advent to all!
POPE FRANCIS
RispondiEliminaANGELUS 1 December 2019
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Good Morning!
Today, the First Sunday of the Time of Advent, a new liturgical year begins. In these four weeks of Advent, the liturgy leads us to celebrate the Nativity of Jesus, while it reminds us that he comes into our lives every day, and will return gloriously at the end of time. This certainty enables us to look trustfully to the future, as we are invited to do by the prophet Isaiah, who with his inspired voice accompanies the entire Advent journey.
In today’s First Reading, Isaiah prophesies that “it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it” (Is 2:2). The temple of the Lord in Jerusalem is presented as the point of convergence and meeting of all peoples. After the Incarnation of the Son of God, Jesus revealed himself as the true temple. Therefore, the marvellous vision of Isaiah is a divine promise and impels us to assume an attitude of pilgrimage, of a journey towards Christ, the meaning and end of all history. Those who hunger and thirst for justice can only find it by following the ways of the Lord, while evil and sin come from the fact that individuals and social groups prefer to follow paths dictated by selfish interests, which cause conflict and war. Advent is the time to welcome the coming of Jesus, who comes as a messenger of peace to show us the ways of God.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus exhorts us to be ready for His coming: “Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming” (Mt 24:42). Keeping watch does not mean to have one’s eyes physically open, but to have one’s heart free and facing the right direction, ready to give and to serve. This is keeping watch! The slumber from which we must awaken is constituted of indifference, of vanity, of the inability to establish genuine human relationships, of the inability to take charge of our brother and sister who is alone, abandoned or ill. The expectation of Jesus who is coming must therefore translate into a commitment to vigilance. It is above all a question of wonder before God’s action, at his surprises, and of according him primacy. Vigilance also means, in a concrete sense, being attentive to our neighbour in difficulty, allowing oneself to be called upon by his needs, without waiting for him or her to ask us for help, but learning to foresee, to anticipate, as God always does with us.
May Mary, the vigilant Virgin and Mother of hope, guide us on this journey, helping us to turn our gaze towards the “mountain of the Lord”, the image of Jesus Christ, that attracts all men and all peoples.