The idea that there is no afterlife in human life could be true. And if you want to convince someone of that, it will be a good idea to first assess what this normal life we have is about. It will not be denied that it has something trivial and much that is extraordinary and inexplicable in terms of its reason for being.
But seven million years after the moment in which hominids separated from other primates in the course of evolution, there are now two great dangers for our first collective life: one ecological, and the other warlike. Both cannot be conjured with universal harmony, of which the heralds, even with all kinds of insufficiencies, of the 2015 Paris Agreement against climate change could be the basis. And secondly, the principle approved by the UN in 2017 of the suppression of nuclear weapons and previous disarmament texts, etc.
In this always threatened context, human beings can feel the instinct of happiness on the rare occasions when we have the sensation of an almost perfect balance; circumstances in which we sense the greatness of the privilege of having been born. I think I have had that feeling once, the last one, on December 5, 2018, the eve of the 40th anniversary of the referendum on the Spanish Constitution of 1978. Something that many former parliamentarians celebrated by listening to the Ninth Symphony at the National Music Auditorium in Madrid. by Beethoven.
In that circumstance, in my brain, the historical memory of the constitutional referendum came together, along with the joy of many signatories of the Constitution, who thought we had fulfilled our duty. That thought converged with the maestoso adagio prior to the “Hymn to Joy” of the Novena itself. It was a perfect moment, not without some kind of indecipherable cosmic relationship. I felt transported to the level of the sublime. Then, when I went out onto the street, it was something else. Now we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Novena.