Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Luke 21, 34-36
'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,
like a trap. For it will come down on all those living on the face of the earth.
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.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Gospel that we heard closes the eschatological discourse according to Luke and ends the liturgical year. Since his arrival in Jerusalem, Jesus taught every day in the temple, and every evening he retired to the garden of olives to pray. He exhorts his disciples to “watch in every moment, praying.” He says this not just with words, but with his own life. He knows well that before decisive and difficult moments it is necessary to be vigilant and ready. Every day is lived as the last. One could say that every day is the last, in the sense that it is unique; not one will be the same as another. Once a day has passed, it does not return. Therefore, every day demands our attention and vigilance because the Lord is before us and knocks at the door of our hearts, as the Apocalypse reminds us, “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me” (Rev 3:20). Luke presents the prayer as the attitude par excellence of disciples who watch to welcome the Lord who knocks on the door of their heart. Prayer not only distances evil and gives strength to combat evil; above all, it frees us from concentrating on ourselves and helps us lift our gaze upward, toward the Lord who is coming. Jesus exhorts us to pray, always, never tiring. For us, poor men and poor women, limited as we are, to pray without ceasing means to pray every day. Yes, in daily prayer, we find the faith that is requested by the Gospel. Prayer continually orients and re-orients the disciple toward God. Every day we must “come before the Son of man,” to listen to the Word that he has left us, and with him we must invoke the Father in heaven in order to taste, already now, the ultimate encounter with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. After having had us contemplate the “end” of history, the Church gives us a new liturgical year, and calls each of us to the centrality of prayer and the necessity of perseverance in prayer as a guarantee of the ultimate encounter between us and the Lord.
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
