In the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere the Community of Sant'Egidio prays for the sick.
Memorial of Saint Athanasius (295-373), Bishop of Alexandria in Egypt.
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In the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere the Community of Sant’Egidio prays for the sick.
Memorial of Saint Athanasius (295-373), Bishop of Alexandria in Egypt.
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
Acts 16,11-15
Sailing from Troas we made a straight run for Samothrace; the next day for Neapolis, and from there for Philippi, a Roman colony and the principal city of that district of Macedonia. After a few days in this city we went outside the gates beside a river as it was the Sabbath and this was a customary place for prayer. We sat down and preached to the women who had come to the meeting. One of these women was called Lydia, a woman from the town of Thyatira who was in the purple-dye trade, and who revered God. She listened to us, and the Lord opened her heart to accept what Paul was saying. After she and her household had been baptised she kept urging us, 'If you judge me a true believer in the Lord,' she said, 'come and stay with us.' And she would take no refusal.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The apostle Paul, called by the "Spirit of Jesus," arrived in Europe, for the first time, around the year 50. We could say that Europe was waiting for the proclamation of the Gospel, as shown by a cry for help from the Macedonians... As reported in the Acts of the Apostles on the day of Pentecost, followers of Jesus, probably of Jewish origin, were already in Rome. Paul’s journey has symbolic value because of its missionary dimension. Paul’s first stop, in the itinerary of the proclamation of the Word of God towards Rome, is in Philippi. This city, named after Alexander the Great’s father, was a Roman colony. Perhaps that is why Paul thought of stopping there first. At this point, the text proceeds with the pronoun "we," suggesting that Luke had joined the mission of Paul and Silas. A group of women, led by a God-fearing cloth dealer named Lydia, welcome Paul to Philippi. After listening to Paul, she converts and asks to be baptized. She is just one person, but Luke stops to emphasize this episode. Indeed, the preaching of the Gospel is not measured by the number of adherents; it does not aim to increase numbers. The Gospel is aimed at changing every single person’s heart. Christian fraternity comes from individual change. Apostolic preaching works by changing people’s hearts and linking them to each other with a fraternal bond. In this sense, Lydia’s insistence in hosting Paul and his companions is an indispensable fruit of conversion to the Gospel. We do not convert to the Gospel for ourselves or for our own self-realization. Conversion means joining with our brothers and sisters to form the one people of God, to which the Lord entrusts the task of preaching, through word and example, the breadth of his love. The fraternity that is born from the preaching of the Gospel immediately turns outwards in mission, a fact with social consequences. This awareness of mission contrasts with the individualistic Christianity that often enters the mind-set of many believers. The Second Vatican Council reiterates that God chose to save men and women by gathering them together in a people so that they would be a sign of and a tool for the unity of the human family.
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
