Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I am the good shepherd,
my sheep listen to my voice,
and they become
one flock and one fold.
.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Luke 21, 20-28
'When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you must realise that it will soon be laid desolate.
Then those in Judaea must escape to the mountains, those inside the city must leave it, and those in country districts must not take refuge in it.
For this is the time of retribution when all that scripture says must be fulfilled.
Alas for those with child, or with babies at the breast, when those days come!
'For great misery will descend on the land and retribution on this people. They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive to every gentile country; and Jerusalem will be trampled down by the gentiles until their time is complete.
'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;
men fainting away with terror and fear at what menaces the world, for the powers of heaven will be shaken.
And then they will see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
When these things begin to take place, stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
This Gospel passage speaks of Jerusalem’s destiny. Matthew and Mark announce only the end of the temple while Luke adds also the destruction of the holy city. The Church, allowing us to listen to this passage at the end of the liturgical year, wants us to meditate on the end of time. And it is good that we do so, or better, that we pay attention to the end toward which our earthly existences are headed. We do not walk in emptiness or overwhelmed by meaninglessness. The Word of God reveals to us the end of our lives: the Jerusalem in heaven. Yes, we walk with our eyes fixed toward the city of heaven where the Lord waits to embrace us together with all the saints. The image of the heavenly Jerusalem, is presented to us in the Apocalypse, underlines the reality that Christian salvation is not an individual matter, but rather, a community matter. Yes, the Lord does not save us one by one, individually, but as a community, a people, like, in fact, a city. Salvation for Christians is closely related with their commitment to the society and the city in which they live. Christian faith has a binding social dimension; that is, we do not save ourselves alone, but only if, driven by the Gospel, we seek to be “yeast” of love for the society of men and women; if we seek to make the light of the Gospel shine along the ways of the world; if we are “salt” that makes the life of men and women tasty and beautiful. The evangelical image of a trampled and destroyed Jerusalem leads us to think also about the situation of the actual Jerusalem, the city of three religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. We cannot forget it. For us too the words of the psalm are true: “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth ” (Ps 137: 5-6). Her difficulties are ours too, and our prayer must not cease until she return to being “the city of peace,” as her name attests. In it we can see the celestial Jerusalem, where all peoples gather around the one God. The current disorder in the world and the “anguish of anxious peoples” which the evangelist describes with apocalyptic language, drives us, believers, to “raise ourselves up and raise our heads” because the Son of man is near. In fact, he has come to live among us so that the world will no longer remain under the yoke of evil and violence. He came to show us the way of peace. In a very particular way, the Lord entrusts us believers with the responsibility to show the world the beauty and strength of the Gospel of love and peace.
Prayer is the heart of the life of the Community of Sant'Egidio and is its absolute priority. At the end of the day, every the Community of Sant'Egidio, large or small, gathers around the Lord to listen to his Word. The Word of God and the prayer are, in fact, the very basis of the whole life of the Community. The disciples cannot do other than remain at the feet of Jesus, as did Mary of Bethany, to receive his love and learn his ways (Phil. 2:5).
So every evening, when the Community returns to the feet of the Lord, it repeats the words of the anonymous disciple: " Lord, teach us how to pray". Jesus, Master of prayer, continues to answer: "When you pray, say: Abba, Father". It is not a simple exhortation, it is much more. With these words Jesus lets the disciples participate in his own relationship with the Father. Therefore in prayer, the fact of being children of the Father who is in heaven, comes before the words we may say. So praying is above all a way of being! That is to say we are children who turn with faith to the Father, certain that they will be heard.
Jesus teaches us to call God "Our Father". And not simply "Father" or "My Father". Disciples, even when they pray on their own, are never isolated nor they are orphans; they are always members of the Lord's family.
In praying together, beside the mystery of being children of God, there is also the mystery of brotherhood, as the Father of the Church said: "You cannot have God as father without having the church as mother". When praying together, the Holy Spirit assembles the disciples in the upper room together with Mary, the Lord's mother, so that they may direct their gaze towards the Lord's face and learn from Him the secret of his Heart.
The Communities of Sant'Egidio all over the world gather in the various places of prayer and lay before the Lord the hopes and the sufferings of the tired, exhausted crowds of which the Gospel speaks ( Mat. 9: 3-7 ), In these ancient crowds we can see the huge masses of the modern cities, the millions of refugees who continue to flee their countries, the poor, relegated to the very fringe of life and all those who are waiting for someone to take care of them. Praying together includes the cry, the invocation, the aspiration, the desire for peace, the healing and salvation of the men and women of this world. Prayer is never in vain; it rises ceaselessly to the Lord so that anguish is turned into hope, tears into joy, despair into happiness, and solitude into communion. May the Kingdom of God come soon among people!
For the sick, in memory of the dead, for peace
