In first Advent meditation with Pope Leo present, Fr. Roberto Pasolini calls Christians “sentinels” awaiting the Parousia, urging serene vigilance amid global crises.
Newsroom (05/12/2025 Gaudium Press ) On the first Friday of Advent, Father Roberto Pasolini, preacher of the Papal Household, opened a cycle of three Christmas meditations in the Paul VI Hall with Pope Leo in attendance, declaring that Advent is above all “the time in which the Church rekindles hope” by contemplating not only Christ’s first coming but especially “his return at the end of times.”
Titled “The Parousia of the Lord. An expectation without hesitation,” the meditation coincided with the closing phase of the Jubilee of Hope and invited the Church to live this season with “serene and active vigilance,” waiting for and simultaneously hastening “the coming of the Day of the Lord.”
“We are not lost wayfarers,” Fr. Pasolini told the assembly, “but sentinels that, in the night of the world, humbly maintain the confidence” that they will see the light “capable of illuminating every man.”
Drawing on the Gospel of Matthew’s four uses of the Greek term “Parousia” – meaning both “presence” and “coming” – the Capuchin preacher compared the anticipation of Christ’s return to the days of Noah. While life appeared to flow normally, Noah alone built the ark as an instrument of salvation. In an era of rapid change, he said, the Church is called to remain “a sacrament of salvation,” even as peace remains “a mirage” in conflict-torn regions and Western culture sees transcendence “crushed by the idols of efficiency, wealth and technology.”
The rise of artificial intelligence, Fr. Pasolini warned, “amplifies the temptation of a human being without limits and without transcendence.”
Yet the heart of his reflection rested on “the mystery of a God who continues to stand before His creation with unshakeable trust.” Baptism, he stressed, confers a prophetic capacity to recognise God’s grace – “that gift of universal salvation which the Church humbly celebrates and offers” – so that human life may be freed from sin and the fear of death.
Turning to the Genesis account of the flood, the preacher insisted that evil in the human heart cannot be overcome merely by evolution or self-improvement. “Evil must not simply be forgiven,” he said. “It must be erased, so that life can finally flourish in its truth and beauty.”
In an unexpected parallel, Fr. Pasolini distinguished biblical “erasing” from today’s cancel culture. Deleting unnecessary files, stains, or debts, he observed, often makes relationships and the world more livable. In the Advent context, such erasing means opening one’s fragility to God and allowing divine mercy to heal and renew.
The flood narrative, he explained, is less about destruction than “a transition of re-creation through a moment of de-creation.” God’s placement of the rainbow as a covenant sign represents a divine declaration of non-violence: the Creator lays down His weapons. “After millennia of history and evolution,” Fr. Pasolini noted somberly, “humanity is still far from knowing how to imitate it,” as the earth remains scarred by “atrocious and endless conflicts.”
Against this backdrop, he praised every voluntary choice not to harm others as a reassuring sign that lasting alliances are built on acceptance rather than domination.
Concluding with Jesus’ exhortation – “Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming” – the papal preacher acknowledged a contemporary reversal: where past generations lived in feverish expectation, many today have slipped into “a subtle resignation” or “weary vigilance tempted by discouragement.”
Fr. Pasolini warned the Church against two temptations: forgetting humanity’s need for salvation and diluting the Gospel’s radical demands to gain consensus through superficial image management.
Only by returning “to the joy – and also the hardship – of following, without taming Christ’s word,” he said, can believers stand as true “sentinels upon the world’s frontier,” sowing goodness while awaiting the definitive coming of Jesus Christ.
The next two Advent meditations will continue exploring the theme “Awaiting and hastening the coming of the Day of the Lord” in the Paul VI Hall.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Vatican News
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