God and you
To say the least, we are not going through the best autumn of our lives.
The war in Ukraine still occupies our thoughts and hearts, and we have witnessed particularly dramatic violence in the Middle East, with a crisis of unprecedented proportions brewing between Israel and Hamas. The political outlook isn't particularly promising for a better future either, and the approaching festive season is, for many, a time of mixed feelings, when happy childhood memories contrast with the fragility and divisions that so often mark our present lives.
And it is at this time when the nights have become longer and the days themselves darker that Advent surprises us. Advent is a time of waiting and preparation for something better, as we hope. Indeed, in the shortness of the days and the darkness of the nights, we see a light shining forth; this is the message of Advent, as the prophet Isaiah recalls: "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; for those who dwelt in the shadows of death a light has begun to shine" (Is 9:2).
Light breaks through the darkness and shines where you least expect it. This certainty that comes from faith is not a more or less naïve or alienated perspective on reality, and it doesn't mean that life will become easier for any of us, or that peace will somehow prevail on the world stage. Rather, it means that in the middle of the dark night, the light of dawn reveals that in tribulation and anguish we were not alone, because God was with us. God, the creator of the world, whom the heavens cannot contain, became one of us, looked us in the face and got to know us; he himself embraced the tribulations and anguish and knew from the inside, in the first person, the trials of this and so many other autumns.
As Pope Francis told us when he visited our campus, "seek and take risks. At this historic moment, the challenges are enormous, the groans are painful - we are living through a third world war in pieces - but we embrace the risk of thinking that we are not in agony, but in labour; we are not at the end, but at the beginning of a great spectacle".
God is with us, God is with us, and he offers his presence to anyone who wants to accept it.
This is the great hope that Advent promises and guarantees, and which can be ours as we wait and prepare to celebrate Christmas.