A message full of hope resounds in the liturgy of Advent, inviting us to raise our gaze to the ultimate horizon but at the same time to recognise the signs of the God-with-us in the present.  In the Second Sunday of Advent, he Word of God acquires the moving tones of the so-called “Second Isaiah”, who announced to the Israelites, tried by decades of bitter exile in Babylon, liberation at last. “Comfort, comfort my people.”

This is what the Lord wishes to do in Advent: to speak to the heart of his people and through it to the while of humanity, to proclaim salvation.

(Pope Benedict XVI)