VATICAN CITY, NOV 27, 2005 (VIS) - At midday today, before praying the Angelus with pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square, Benedict XVI explained how this liturgical period "of great religious significance," is "permeated with hope and spiritual anticipation."
The Pope explained how, during Advent, Christians experience a dual movement of the spirit: "On the one hand, 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 is directed to the future, but it always remains firmly rooted in an event from the past."
After emphasizing that this is a time in which "Christians must reawaken in their hearts the hope of being able, with God's help, to renew the world," the Holy Father quoted the Vatican Council II Apostolic Constitution "Gaudium et spes" on the Church in the modern world, "a text profoundly imbed with Christian hope ... which 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'."
ANG/ADVENT/... VIS 20051128 (220)
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