VATICAN - The Pope at the Angelus: “Man and the world need God- the true God! - otherwise they cannot hope. Science does much for the good of humanity - undoubtedly - but it cannot save it.”

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - On 2 December the first Sunday of Advent, the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI dedicated his reflection before the recitation of the Angelus prayer to the significance of the Advent Season which opens the new liturgical year, a time when “the People of God prepare again to live the mystery of Christ in history”. The Pope said “history changes and calls incessantly to be evangelised; it needs to be renewed from within and Christ alone is truly new: He is the fullness of history, the luminous future of mankind and the world … Advent is therefore an opportunity to rekindle in our hearts the longing for the One ‘who is, who was and who comes'. The Son of God came at Bethlehem twenty centuries ago, he comes at every moment to hearts and communities ready to receive Him, he will come again at the end of time to ‘judge the living and the dead’. This is why the believer, filled with firm hope, is always ready to encounter the Lord”.
Benedict XVI continued underlining that the first Sunday of Advent “is a most suitable day on which to offer the whole Church and all men and women of goodwill” his second Encyclical, dedicated to the subject of Christian peace and which bears the title “Spe salvi” because it begins with the words of St Paul: "Spe salvi facti sumus - In hope we were saved" (Rom 8,24). “In this and other passages of the New Testament - the Holy Father said -, the word ‘hope’ is closely connected with the word ‘faith’. It is a gift which changes the life of the receiver, as the experience of many saints demonstrates”. Hope consists in “knowledge of God, discovering him as the Father, good and merciful of heart. Jesus, with his death on the cross and his resurrection, revealed to us the face of God, the face of a God whose love is so great that he communicated to us unswerving hope which not even death can break, because the life of those who trust in this Father opens to the prospect of eternal happiness.”
In his address Benedict XVI remarked how “the development of modern science has increasingly confined faith and hope to the individual and private sphere, and so today it is evident, and at times dramatically so, that man and the world need God- the true God! - otherwise they cannot hope. Science does much for the good of humanity - undoubtedly - but it cannot save it. Man is saved by love which renders personal and social life good and beautiful. This is why the great hope, the full and lasting hope, is guaranteed by God, by God who is Love, who in Jesus came to visit us and gave us life, and who will return at the end of time, in Him. It is in Christ that we hope, He is the One we are waiting for!”. Before leading the recitation of the Marian prayer the Pope urged the Church to go “with Mary, his Mother” to meet the Bridegroom, with works of charity, “because hope, like faith, is demonstrated with love”, and he concluded “Happy Advent to everyone!”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 3/12/2007 - righe 33, parole 536)