Fr. Roberto Pasolini, the new Preacher of the Papal Household, delivers his first Advent Sermon to Pope Francis and the Roman Curia, focusing on the theme “The Door of Wonder.”
By Alessandro Di Bussolo and Isabella Piro
The wonder before God’s newness—the mystery of the Incarnation—is “the first movement of the heart to awaken” as we journey toward the celebration of the Lord’s birth at Christmas and prepare to cross the Jubilee Door with renewed hope.
We are called to learn from the wonder of Mary after the angel Gabriel’s announcement, who “lets herself be naturally drawn” into God’s plan and desired to “participate in it freely and consciously.” In order to do so, we must first dissolve the rigidity of our hearts, saying ‘no’ to all that risks closing us off and weighing us down: fear, resignation, and cynicism. Only then “can we see everything with new eyes, recognizing those seeds of the Gospel already present in reality” and ready to bring God’s hope into the world.
Father Roberto Pasolini, a Capuchin Franciscan friar and the new Preacher to the Papal Household, offered this inspiration on Friday morning to Pope Francis and members of the Roman Curia in Vatican’s Paul VI Hall.
The theme chosen for the three Advent Sermons is “The Doors of Hope: Toward the Opening of the Holy Year through the Prophecy of Christmas.”
Opening the Door of Wonder
After expressing his heartfelt gratitude to his predecessor, Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, the “preacher of the joy and light of the Gospel” to the Papal Household for 44 years, Fr. Pasolini invited everyone to open “The Door of Wonder,” the theme of his first meditation.
He began by focusing on the voices of the prophets, the “courage to dissent” of Elizabeth, and the “humility to adhere” of Mary. The prophets, those who “deeply understand the meaning of historical events,” point us, according to Fr. Pasolini, toward the challenge of Advent: “to notice God’s presence and action within history and to awaken wonder before what He not only can do but above all desires to accomplish still in our lives and the history of the world.”
Voices of the prophets: Admonition leading to hope
Highlighting how the liturgy immerses us in many prophetic texts during this season, Fr. Pasolini emphasized that their voices can never leave us indifferent.
As Jeremiah teaches, they produce two effects in us: admonition, which then opens us to hope because “God reaffirms His faithful love and offers His people a new opportunity.”
These are words we find hard to hear, especially “when God’s voice seeks to reopen channels of hope,” as “accepting good news is not easy, especially when reality has long been marked by suffering, disappointment, and uncertainty. The temptation to believe that nothing new can happen often creeps into our hearts.”
Yet voices like Isaiah’s—“See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?”—reach us precisely where we are tempted to think that reality can no longer offer new glimmers of light.
The challenge, then, is to reawaken “wonder” before what God desires “to still accomplish in our lives and the history of the world.”
Example of Elizabeth and Mary
To prepare ourselves to listen to these prophetic voices, Fr. Pasolini pointed to two female figures, Elizabeth and the Virgin Mary, who embody the two fundamental attitudes needed to generate a dynamic of salvation within us.
Elizabeth courageously said ‘no’ to the apparent continuity of things and relationships, while Mary of Nazareth exemplified the need to say ‘yes’ to God’s newness, formulating a free and joyful consent to His will.
Fr. Pasolini reflected on the story of Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah, as told by the evangelist Luke. Zechariah, an elderly priest, is “unable to trustfully accept the announcement of a long-desired but seemingly impossible event”: the birth of a son.
Because of his lack of faith, he is rendered mute until John’s circumcision, the name indicated by the angel. When relatives suggest naming the child after his father, Elizabeth intervenes: “No, he will be called John.”
Zechariah means “God remembers,” while John means “God is merciful.” The new name, Fr. Pasolini explained, shifts attention to the present and “suggests that history, though influenced by its legacies, is always capable of transcending itself and opening to new possibilities when God acts.”
Zechariah writes his agreement to the name John on a tablet and regains his voice.
Discovering that the best is yet to come
For the papal preacher, Elizabeth’s reaction suggests that “at times, it is necessary to interrupt the flow of events to open oneself to God’s newness.”
“Today more than ever, in an extraordinary time in human history,” Fr. Pasolini noted, “we need to recover this kind of spiritual perspective on reality,” in which “alongside grave injustices, wars, and violence afflicting every corner of the world, new discoveries and promising paths of liberation are emerging.”
Focused as we are on the present, “we struggle to invest in the future and tend to imagine tomorrow as a mere photocopy of today.”
Elizabeth’s ‘no,’ however, which entrusts her son John’s destiny to God, “reminds us that nothing and no one is conditioned solely by their history and roots but is continually reconditioned by God’s grace.”
Mary: Humility to assent
Lastly, reflecting on Mary’s response to God’s call, Fr. Pasolini reread the Gospel of the Annunciation, drawing out details that “can help us recover some wonder toward the mystery of the Incarnation.”
He explained that, in Luke’s Gospel, the angel Gabriel’s task is to “enter Mary’s heart without forcing her willingness in any way because their dialogue must occur in complete freedom” and “in a climate of trust.”
Mary is commanded to rejoice, recognizing “that something is already present: the Lord is with her.” This, Fr.Pasolini explained, is “the grace of Advent,” which allows us “to realize there are more reasons to rejoice than to grieve, not because life is easy, but because the Lord is with us, and anything can still happen.”
Yet Mary responds to the angel’s words with “great wonder,” for at least two reasons. First, “when someone manifests love to us, it is always a surprise. Love is never a given,” and “we need to feel recognized and accepted for who we are.”
Second, her heart senses that it is time “to be fully redefined by God’s word,” as though “God’s word were writing on a sheet where many other statements have already accumulated and organized themselves over time, leaving little room for further declarations.”
In Advent, said Fr. Pasolini, waiting and listening allow God’s voice to “reenter us, retelling who we are and can be before His face.”
Mary’s call to an impossible pregnancy by human standards exposed her to misunderstanding and judgment under the Law of Moses.
Fr. Pasolini said this means that “every call from God necessarily exposes us to death because it contains the promise of a life wholly given to God and the world.”
Such fear “before this kind of responsibility” can only be overcome by “contemplating the beauty and greatness of what awaits us.” But to embrace this fully, Fr. Pasolini stressed, “we cannot limit ourselves to saying those ‘yeses’ that cost us nothing and deprive us of nothing.”
Every “authentic Gospel decision” costs us our entire life and risks losing our privileges and certainties. Saying ‘yes’ to God, he noted, risks “dying to the balances we have reached and in which we try to remain.” Yet this is precisely “the path that helps us rediscover ourselves.”
Behold the Servant of the Lord
To the angel, Mary responded with her “holy wonder,” asking, “How will this be since I do not know man?”
She “does not seek to understand God’s plan in detail” but simply desires to “participate in it freely and consciously.” The angel does not explain how she will conceive the Son of God’s flesh but announces that the Holy Spirit will be her faithful guardian.
With her words, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord: let it be to me according to your word,” Mary “declares her complete enthusiasm for the call she has just received.”
Fr. Pasolini said it is as though she told the angel, “What you have asked me to accept, I now desire and choose for myself.”
According to Fr. Pasolini, “every annunciation we receive on life’s journey” should end in this way. “When God’s light manages to show us that within the fear of what lies ahead, there is the faithfulness of an eternal promise, wonder arises within us, and we find ourselves able to finally say, ‘Here I am.’”
