Christmas is ycumen in II

One year goes and then another, but the same warnings recur.  The frost or the rain comes again; the earth is stripped of  its brightness; there is nothing to rejoice in.  And then, amid this unprofitableness of earth and sky, the well-known words return; the Prophet Isaiah is read; the same Epistle and Gospel, bidding us 'awake out of sleep', (Rom 13:11) and welcome him 'that cometh in the Name of the Lord' (Mt 21:9); the same Collects beseeching him to prepare us for judgement.  O blessed they who obey these warning voices, and look out for him whom they have not seen, because they 'love his appearing' (2 Tim 4:8)!

From one of Bl John Henry Newman's sermons for the 1st Sunday of Advent, as quoted in the Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham.