The season of Advent invites us to look at the world anew, recognizing God’s marvelous plan of salvation.
There are many ways to meditate on this reality, but Pope Benedict XVI offers to us two simple words:
At the beginning of a new yearly cycle, the liturgy invites the Church to renew her proclamation to all the peoples and sums it up in two words, “God comes.” These words, so concise, contain an ever new evocative power.
First of all, this should remind us that God did not simply come to us in the past, but that he “comes” in the present:
Let us pause a moment to reflect: it is not used in the past tense — God has come, — nor in the future — God will come, — but in the present: “God comes”.
At a closer look, this is a continuous present, that is, an ever-continuous action: it happened, it is happening now and it will happen again. In whichever moment, “God comes.”
This simple fact reveals to us a God of love, who does not abandon his people, but who wants to be with them in every moment of history:
He is a Father who never stops thinking of us and, in the extreme respect of our freedom, desires to meet us and visit us; he wants to come, to dwell among us, to stay with us. His coming is motivated by the desire to free us from evil and death, from all that prevents our true happiness. God comes to save us.
This Advent, meditate on these two simple words and remember that God has not abandoned us, but comes to us now and desires to be with us in the present moment.