MORE THAN THE CUP OF THE KING

What do we wait? Why do we always have to wait?

In love poems, lovers always promise each other they’ll wait “even eternally.” We know that in everyday life most people from this society don’t wait unless it is something or somebody important. However, in dates the most important issue is not to wait, but to be attended.

How to wait is an important key in life. This is urgent for paying attention and to be conscious about the details we are living and also the way we are with the people we live with. Little by little this directs us towards an internalization of what we learn every day in the missionary life.

In the Old Testament is shown a long wait. Almost the whole story is about waiting, a hopeful waiting. Prophets had an admirable conviction when dealing with any life situation, announcing life and denouncing everything that opposed to it. This fact requires to trust in what hope is for everybody. They were those who were at the front of the people on behalf of God (Exodus 20:2; 1 Kings 17:20-24). They were there to keep us on the road, waiting and trusting in God’s promise to his people.

Saint Paul helps us to remember in 1 Thessalonians 4, 13: “do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.” We are not those who wait in vain or those who get tired of waiting. If we keep our hope, we will never get disappointed. Precisely, this clarification of having and keeping hope are the conducting lines for those whom we have to revive every day. Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI in his Encyclical Spe Salvi N°2 states: “…a distinctive element of Christian people is the fact that we have a future and though we do not know what is waiting for us, we know that our lives do not end in emptiness.” This is because we do not wait for something, but for Somebody who loves us and forgives us, which are a type of love and a goodness act unknown for men. For this reason, we -as missionary women- dream and look for ways for making true this belief as a personal one as well as of the Church. There is a time for healing and happiness that are able to rinse “humanity tears” and to proclaim jubilation.

In today’s sing “Today I have come back” (“Hoy he vuelto” in Spanish) dedicated to Mary is a melody that touches children’s hearts by a mother’s affection, who always waits her son or daughter to come back. She never gets tired of waiting. Mary teaches us that waiting is wishing to do everything right, preparing oneself for the arrival of the beloved. In her, it is shown the capacity of being attentive and welcoming of everything that involves someone’s return. We wait for the good that will come for the humanity.

Thus, we maintain our training, getting used to forgive, crying for others, feeling the pain as others feel it, loving until our soul hurts, and insisting on getting what we wish so much winning, a goal that brings in itself the prize of acting well. We do not run on the square or on a football field. We follow the steps of human values that are clung to good wishes and charitable works. The return of a road made from itinerancy is something gratifying and it comes as a God’s gift.

Valentina Rebollos O.P.