VATICAN - On the Second Sunday of Advent, the Holy Father mentions that “in the Advent liturgy there resounds a message full of hope, which invites us to lift up our gaze to the ultimate horizon, but at the same time to recognize the signs of God-with-us in the present.”

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) – On the Second Sunday of Advent, December 7, the Holy Father Benedict XVI spoke prior to the recitation of the Angelus, explaining that the liturgical season of Advent is “a time of openness to God's future, a time of preparation for Christmas,” and that “in the Advent liturgy there resounds a message full of hope, which invites us to lift up our gaze to the ultimate horizon, but at the same time to recognize the signs of God-with-us in the present.”
Reflecting on the readings for the day, the Pope mentioned how the Lord, during Advent, wishes to “speak to the heart of his people and, through them, to the whole of humanity, to proclaim salvation.” Even today, the Church “is as a sentinel on the mountain of faith” and she announces the Lord's coming to a people that is worn out by misery and hunger, for throngs of refugees, for those who suffer grave and systematic violations of their rights.
Jesus Christ, through His preaching and later with his death and resurrection, “fulfilled the ancient promises...He inaugurated an exodus that was no longer a merely earthly, historical, and as such provisional, exodus, but one that was radical and definitive: the passage from the kingdom of evil to the Kingdom of God, from the dominion of sin and death to that of love and life. Because of this, Christian hope transcends the legitimate desire for a social and political liberation, because that what Jesus began is a new humanity that comes 'from God,' but that at the same time germinates on our earth, to the extent that it lets itself be impregnated by the Spirit of the Lord. It is thus a matter of entering fully into the logic of faith: believing in God, in his plan of salvation, and also working for the building up of his Kingdom. Justice and peace, in fact, are God's gift, but they require men and women who are "good soil," ready to receive the good seed of his Word.”
Mary, the Virgin Mother, “is the 'way' that God himself prepared for his coming into the world,” and to her maternal presence, the Pope entrusted “the desire for peace and salvation of the men of our time.” (SL) (Agenzia Fides 9/12/2008)