In Advent, Christians relive a dual impulse of the spirit: on the one hand, they raise their eyes towards the final destination of their pilgrimage through history, which is the glorious return of the Lord Jesus; on the other, remembering with emotion his birth in Bethlehem, they kneel before the Crib.  The hope of Christians is turned tot the future but remains firmly rooted in an event of the past.  In the fullness of time, the Son of God was born of the Virgin Mary: “Born of a woman, born under the law”, as the Apostle Paul writes (Ga 4:4).

We might say that Advent is the season in which Christians must rekindle in their hearts the hope that they will be able with God’s help to renew the world.