Today, together with the Church, we are beginning the new liturgical year, which begins with the Season of Advent. It is a marvelous period in which we anticipate Christ’s return.

"Watch!" It is a salutary reminder to us that life does not only have an earthly dimension but reaches towards a "beyond", like a plantlet that sprouts from the ground and opens towards the sky. A thinking plantlet, man, endowed with freedom and responsibility, which is why each one of us will be called to account for how he/she has lived, how each one has used the talents with which each is endowed.

—The true "master" of the world is not the human being but God. The Gospel says: "Watch therefore —for you do not know when the master of the house will be coming”. The Season of Advent returns every year to remind us of this in order that our life may find its proper orientation, turned to the face of God. The face is not that of a "master" but of a Father and a Friend.