Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Jonah 1, 1-2,1.11
The word of Yahweh was addressed to Jonah son of Amittai:
'Up!' he said, 'Go to Nineveh, the great city, and proclaim to them that their wickedness has forced itself upon me.'
Jonah set about running away from Yahweh, and going to Tarshish. He went down to Jaffa and found a ship bound for Tarshish; he paid his fare and boarded it, to go with them to Tarshish, to get away from Yahweh.
But Yahweh threw a hurricane at the sea, and there was such a great storm at sea that the ship threatened to break up.
The sailors took fright, and each of them called on his own god, and to lighten the ship they threw the cargo overboard. Jonah, however, had gone below, had lain down in the hold and was fast asleep,
when the boatswain went up to him and said, 'What do you mean by sleeping? Get up! Call on your god! Perhaps he will spare us a thought and not leave us to die.'
Then they said to each other, 'Come on, let us draw lots to find out who is to blame for bringing us this bad luck.' So they cast lots, and the lot pointed to Jonah.
Then they said to him, 'Tell us, what is your business? Where do you come from? What is your country? What is your nationality?'
He replied, 'I am a Hebrew, and I worship Yahweh, God of Heaven, who made both sea and dry land.'
The sailors were seized with terror at this and said, 'Why ever did you do this?' since they knew that he was trying to escape from Yahweh, because he had told them so.
They then said, 'What are we to do with you, to make the sea calm down for us?' For the sea was growing rougher and rougher.
He replied, 'Take me and throw me into the sea, and then it will calm down for you. I know it is my fault that this great storm has struck you.'
The sailors rowed hard in an effort to reach the shore, but in vain, since the sea was growing rougher and rougher.
So at last they called on Yahweh and said, 'O, Yahweh, do not let us perish for the sake of this man's life, and do not hold us responsible for causing an innocent man's death; for you, Yahweh, have acted as you saw fit.'
And taking hold of Jonah they threw him into the sea; and the sea stopped raging.
At this, the men were seized with dread of Yahweh; they offered a sacrifice to Yahweh and made vows to him.
Now Yahweh ordained that a great fish should swallow Jonah; and Jonah remained in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights.
Yahweh spoke to the fish, which then vomited Jonah onto the dry land.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The words that God spoke to Jonah must have sounded paradoxical. How could he go to Nineveh, a city that seemed immense to him, the capital of the great and powerful Assyrian empire that had destroyed the kingdom of Israel in 721 B.C. and deported many of its inhabitants How could those bitter enemies of Israel listen to his words The prophet has no doubts: those enemies are so violent that they could never listen to his poor preaching. In the end, Jonah has good reason to flee from God’s command and go as far away from Nineveh as possible. How different from Abraham, who immediately obeyed God’s call, even if he had not understood everything and had no idea what awaited him. Jonah understands the call but is afraid and runs away. But his flight turns into a tragedy for him and for the unlucky sailors of that ship, who paradoxically invoke the Lord whom they did not know and from whom he was fleeing. Jonah’s problem was to go beyond the boundaries to which he was accustomed, out of the environment that was familiar to him, and out of the territory that he might have known by heart. God’s call was to go further. We could read Jonah’s call as something addressed to us, too, just as Pope Francis urges us to go into the geographic and existential peripheries of the great cities of our time. How can we not think of our fear of going towards a complex world of which we understand very little Indeed, we are very familiar with Jonah’s resistance. And we certainly can understand his fear. But this fear not only closes us up in our horizons, it also blocks - and this is a tragedy - the path of the Word of God. And the proclamation of the Gospel risks being kept prisoner of our world, our group, our ethnicity, our people. Jonah finally accepts God’s invitation to go into the great city. Not only does he avoid being shipwrecked, swallowed up by the strength of evil, but he permits the Word of God to work and change the great city of Nineveh. It is an example for us all. The Lord’s call to go out into the periphery is made to us all.
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
