Holy Father Speaks
GOD,
BY ENTERING HISTORY, GIVES US HIS TIME
VATICAN CITY, 30 NOV 2008 (VIS) - At
midday today, the First Sunday of Advent, Benedict XVI appeared at the
window of his study overlooking St. Peter's Square to pray the
Angelus
with the thousands of pilgrims gathered there.
Advent, which opens the new liturgical
year, "invites us to reflect upon the dimension of time", said the Pope.
Many people in our own day, he noted, complain of "a lack of time,
because the rhythm of daily life has become so frenetic for everyone.
Yet even on this subject, the Church has 'good news' to bring. God gives
us His time. We always have little time. For the Lord, especially, we do
not know how, or sometimes do not want to, find it. And yet God has time
for us. ... He gives us His time, because He entered history with His
word and His works of salvation, opening it to eternity and making it a
history of alliance.
"From this point of view", he added,
"time is, in itself, already a fundamental sign of God's love: a gift
which man ... can either value or waste, understand its significance of
superficially ignore".
The Pope then went on to identify the
three cardinal moments of time which mark the history of salvation:
creation, incarnation-redemption, and 'parusia' which includes the final
judgement. "These three moments, however, are not to be understood in
mere chronological succession", he said. "Creation is, indeed, the
origin of everything but it is also continuous and operates over the
entire span of cosmic development, until the end of time.
Incarnation-redemption too, although it took place at a specific
historical moment, the period of Jesus' time on earth, nonetheless
extends its range of action to all time that preceded and followed. And
in their turn the second coming and final judgement, decisively
anticipated in the Cross of Christ, exercise their influence on the
behaviour of mankind in all ages".
"The Lord comes continually into our
lives. ... On this first Sunday we are again powerfully presented with
Jesus' call to "remain vigilant" because "at a time that only God knows
each will be called to account for his or her life. This means", he
concluded, "detachment from worldly things, sincere penitence for one's
errors, effective charity towards others and, above all, humble and
trusting abandonment in the hands of God, our tender and merciful
Father".
