And the hope is a pregnant woman of a diverse world.

Only the women, the mothers, know the waiting, because it is inscribed physically in their bodies. It is expected, not for a lack, but for a plenitude, not for absence to be fulfilled, but for an overabundance of life that presses already. It is expected to engender : the wind of the Spirit fills the life.

(Ermes Rochi)

Text: Luke 21, 25-28.34-36 on - the First Sunday ofC- Advent - Beginning of the liturgical year. Cycle C Comentarios and presentation: M. Asun Gutirrez Cabriada. Music: Mahler. Adagietto Symphonie n 5. Translation to English: J. Izquierdo OH

There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars; on earth nations in agony, bewildered by the turmoil of the ocean and its waves; 26 men fainting away with terror and fear at what menaces the world, for the powers of heaven will be shaken.
25

The "signs" that it mentions affect to the totality of the creation (sky, the sun, moon, stars, earth, sea). The text uses apocalyptic language, which doesn't mean catastrophe, as it tends to be thought and as it has been about to explain, but revelation. In the apocalyptic tradition, the cosmic catastrophe was the symbol of the fall of an unjust social order, and of the opening of a new world: of the victory of the Messiah and of the beginning of the universal reign of God. Luke presents this event as Good News. The target isn't to provoke fear but to encourage to the happiness and to the hope. Our faith isn't based on events description, but in following Jesus. What signs of hope and of liberation do I offer to the persons and to the world?

The evangelist puts in mouth of Jesus these words of spirit and peace. Jesus is coming: what a happiness! what a liberation! The humanity may pass through sufferings, my personal life may have problems and mishaps. Nothing of that has the last word. The decisive thing for every one of us there is the time that through which we have to live, that is the immediate preparation to the personal encounter with Jesus. He invites us to have courage, getting over ,not looking to another side in the face of the necessities of people that surround us, to compromise us to make possible, worthy and happy the life of all. To wait for the liberating arrival of Jesus compromises us to live through the present liberating us and liberating others.

And then they will see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.28 When these things begin to take place, stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand.
27

Watch yourselves, or your hearts will be coarsened by debauchery and drunkenness and the cares of life, and that day will come upon you unexpectedly, 35 like a trap. For it will come down on all those living on the face of the earth.
34

The examples that Jesus puts keep on being current. Every person knows what dulls the mind and the heart and prevents him/her from having deployed the antenna toward the values of the spirit, to genuine happiness., towards the authentic happiness. The indolence? the routine?: the incoherence?: the pessimism?: the infantilism? the conformism?: the egoism?: the consumerism?: the lack of solidarity?... Don't be content with what it neither fills it nor lights your heart. It is a time to give the best news. Around you they need a kind word, a gesture of friendship, an ideal that fills with enthusiasm, a stretched hand, an enthusiasm that renew, a boundless love...

Stay awake, praying at all times for the strength to survive all that is going to happen, and to hold your ground before the Son of man.
36

Expecting Jesus means not to speculate about the end of the world, but to live the present with lucidity, confidence and responsibility. Without alarmism or conformism. Ours is to believe in a future of fullness, without escaping of the present, keeping alive the hope, which it illuminates and The moment that we live is timely to give reason for our hope. With joy, without any fear, because it comes closer the time of liberating us and of liberating of all that prevents to live with authentic happiness, because it comes closer our Liberation.

We believe in Jesus de Nazareth, who didn't preach laws not systems, but the God's Kingdom. We believe in Jesus. Under his light and with his force, we can live, act, to suffer and to die in this world, of truly human form, supported by God, determined to the end in the struggle for the human being. We believe in Jesus, we wait for the Kingdom that he announced and we commit ourselves in working without rest to take the whole humanity to this Kingdom. Hans Kng