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Benedict XVI Homily, December 2, 2006 (First Vespers of Advent)
At the beginning of a new annual cycle, the liturgy invites the Church to renew its announcement to all nations and sums it up in two words: "God comes." If this expression contains a synthetic power of suggestion always new. Let us pause to reflect: it does not use the past - God has come - or the future - God will come - but this: "God comes." It is, on balance, a continuous present, that is to say an action is always in progress: it took place, it takes place and it will happen again. At every moment, "God comes." The verb "to come" appears here as a theological verb, indeed theological "because it tells us something about the nature of God. Proclaiming that "God comes" is equivalent, therefore, simply announcing God himself, through one of his essential and qualifying characteristics: being the God-who-comes.
Advent calls believers to become aware of this truth and act accordingly. It sounds like a salutary appeal in the succession of days, weeks, months: Wake up! Remember that God comes! Not yesterday, not tomorrow, but today, now! The one true God, "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" is not a God who is in heaven, not interested in us or our history, but it is the God -who-comes. He is a Father who never stops thinking of us and, with extreme respect for our freedom, desires to meet us and visit us and he wants to come, stay with us, stay with us. His "coming" is motivated by the desire to free us from evil and death, everything that prevents our true happiness. God comes to save us .
