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POPE-ADVENT Dec-3-2007 (450 words) With photos. xxxi
Pope says Advent is good time to rediscover hope, read encyclical
By John Thavis
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI began Advent by summarizing his latest encyclical on Christian hope and encouraging people to read it.
The time before Christmas is a good period to rediscover the hope that Christ brought to human history, which can "change one's life," the pope said Dec. 2, the first Sunday of Advent.
He said he wrote his second encyclical, "Spe Salvi" (on Christian hope), for the entire church and for all people of good will. The 76-page text was released at the Vatican Nov. 30.
Addressing pilgrims at his noon blessing, the pope said the essence of Christian hope was an awareness of God and "the discovery that he has the heart of a good and merciful father." Christ's life and death gave God's love a human face, he said.
Emphasizing a point he made in his encyclical, the pope said modern science holds out much that is good, but "cannot redeem humanity."
"The development of modern science has increasingly confined faith and hope to a private and individual sphere, in such a way that today it is clear, sometimes dramatically clear, that man and the world need God -- the real God -- and otherwise remain without hope," he said.
On Dec. 1, presiding over an evening prayer service in St. Peter's Basilica, the pope said Advent was the time to understand that Christian hope is not "vague and illusory" but is embodied in Jesus Christ.
The days leading up to Christmas can be a time of spiritual reawakening, a reminder that Christ "does not stop knocking at our door," he said.
The pope said he tried to make clear in his encyclical that Christianity brought something new to the pagan societies of old, but he added that it also spoke to the "paganism of our days."
Contemporary paganism, the pope said, is a "nihilism that corrodes hope in the human heart, leading the person to think that nothingness reigns inside and outside of himself: nothing before birth, nothing after death."
The Christian perspective, on the contrary, is that hope makes sense as the human response to a loving God, he said.
"What else moves the world forward, if not the trust that God has in man?" he said.
"This trust is reflected in the hearts of little ones, of the humble, when despite everyday problems and trials they try to do their best and accomplish that little bit of good which, however, in the eyes of God is a great deal: in the family, the workplace, in school and in various sectors of society," he said.
END
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