Following is the text of the meditation by His Beatitude Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, on the second Sunday of Advent, dated December 7, 2025:

Both the season of Advent and Lent carry with them an urgent call to conversion. 

However, these two invitations, have a different nuance: the charachter of Lent is more penitential, referring to the inner struggle, and it points to practices such as fasting, almsgiving, and prayer. It is the conversion of the heart, which needs to allow itself to be transformed by the Paschal love, a love that conquers sin and death.

The conversion proposed to us in the time of Advent concerns, above all, our gaze: it wants to help us pay attention, to learn how to recognize the Lord who comes. It is an “eschatological” conversion, a joyful learning of how to live starting from now as citizens of the Kingdom that is to come.

Repentance is also the central theme of the Gospel passage of this Second Sunday of Advent. (Matthew 3:1–12) This passage helps us to deepen our understanding of the relationship between Advent and conversion.

The main figure is John the Baptist, who is in the desert and from there calls everyone to repentance. (Matthew 3:1–5)

His austere figure recalls that of the prophet Elijah, and therefore awakens in those who see and hear him the expectation of the imminent coming of the Messiah. In fact, prophet Malachi had linked Elijah’s return to the coming of the Messiah, and this belief was common at that time: “He will turn the heart of fathers to their sons, and the heart of sons to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the land with utter destruction." (Matthew 3:23–24) The preaching of the Baptist created precisely this atmosphere of expectation. The echo of his word is strong: many go down to the Jordan and are baptized, confessing their sins (Matthew 3:5–6)

His words shake everyone, but especially those many ‘Pharisees and Sadducees’ (Matthew 3:7) who allow themselves to be called out by John, who rebukes them as ‘brood of vipers’: John denounces the possible hypocrisy of those who are content with outward religiosity and do not open themselves instead to a true conversion of the heart.

The invitation, for everyone, is to enter into a penitential attitude, to be ready to welcome the One who is coming and whom John describes as stronger than himself, who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire, who will judge everyone with justice. (Matthew 3:11-12)

John seeks to instill two pillars necessary in this process of transformation: on the one hand, conversion, and on the other, waitful expectation. These are two fundamental pillars for the life of faith, and they go hand-in-hand. 

Because without conversion, the waitful expectation risks fruitlessness: a vague dream, a hope that has no impact on one's life. But without expectation, conversion risks becoming moralism, an ascetic exercise closed in on itself, which does not open up to an encounter with the Other.

John the Baptist, on the other hand, brings these two attitudes together, and he says from the start: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matthewt 3:2) The nearness of the Kingdom is the reason, the driving force behind repentance, which is the turning of our gaze towards the One who is coming, towards the One who is expected.

Conversion does not mean the voluntary effort of those who seek to improve themselves, to stop making mistakes. Conversion,  using the images employed by John, is more like the work of a farmer who takes care of his plants.

John uses the agricultural image twice in this passage: first, when he asks the Pharisees and Sadducees to bear fruit worthy of their true conversion ('Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance') Matthew 3:8); then, immediately afterwards, in verse 10, when he states that the axe is laid to the root of the trees, and that every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down (‘Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.’) Matthew 3:10)

Therefore, the conversion of which the Baptist speaks of, does not consist in making a temporary effort, which usually wears off quickly, or in adopting a moralistic lifestyle. Rather, it is about founding one's life, putting down roots in that which, little by little, builds a full and grateful life: a relationship with God. By listening with perseverance to the Word of God, and allowing our hearts to be transformed by the expectation of the One who comes out of love for our lives, so that our lives may bear fruit.

+Pierbattista