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Vatican City, 28th November 2005 (CNA)
- Before praying his weekly Angelus prayer
with a large group of pilgrims gathered in St.
Peter’s Square Sunday, Pope Benedict urged
Christians to utilize the period of Advent to
reawaken their hearts, so that with God’s help,
they can renew the world.
He began by explaining how the liturgical
period of Advent, which began yesterday, is "of
great religious significance," and is "permeated
with hope and spiritual anticipation."
The Pope said that during this season,
Christians experience a dual movement of the
spirit: "On the one hand,” he said, “they raise
their eyes towards the final goal of their
pilgrimage in history, which is the glorious
return of the Lord Jesus; on the other, recalling
with emotion His birth in Bethlehem, they bow
before the manager.”
“The hope of Christians”, he observed, “is
directed to the future, but it always remains
firmly rooted in an event from the
past."
Pope Benedict highlighted that during
Advent, "Christians must reawaken in their hearts
the hope of being able, with God's help, to renew
the world."
On this note, he quoted "Gaudium et spes",
the famous Vatican Council II Apostolic
Constitution on the Church in the modern world, a
text which the Pope called “profoundly imbed with
Christian hope.”
The document reads: 'We are
taught that God is preparing a new dwelling place
and a new earth where justice will abide, and
whose blessedness will answer and surpass all the
longings for peace which spring up in the human
heart'." |
