EVERYDAY PRAYER

Sunday Vigil
Word of god every day

Sunday Vigil

Memorial of Saint Francis Xavier, a sixteenth-century Jesuit missionary in India and Japan. Read more

Libretto DEL GIORNO
Sunday Vigil
Saturday, December 3

Memorial of Saint Francis Xavier, a sixteenth-century Jesuit missionary in India and Japan.


Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Psalm 147,1-6

1 Praise the Lord!
  How good it is to sing praises to our God;
  for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting.

2 The Lord builds up Jerusalem;
  he gathers the outcasts of Israel.

3 He heals the broken-hearted,
  and binds up their wounds.

4 He determines the number of the stars;
  he gives to all of them their names.

5 Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
  his understanding is beyond measure.

6 The Lord lifts up the downtrodden;
  he casts the wicked to the ground.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The liturgy recounts the first of three parts of psalm 147. The psalmist, who presupposes that a difficult situation has been overcome by God’s intervention, calls the people to sing His praises. It is the Lord in fact who builds the city of Jerusalem so the people can live there. God is like an architect who builds for His own people a place where they can live in security and peace. From this we have the origin of the city’s name, Jerusalem, city of peace. It is clear that the Lord does not save men and women individually but gathers the dispersed into one people: “gathers the dispersed of Israel.” Salvation consists in being parts of one people. It is the thread that ties the entire Bible tradition together from the first to the last page. The Book of Revelation, which closes God’s revelation, ends with the description of the heavenly Jerusalem. On this topic Lumen Gentium notes: “God wanted to sanctify and save men not as individuals and without any bond between them, but rather he wants to build of them a people, which recognizes him in the truth and serves him faithfully. (n.9). In a globalized world, like ours, where individualism seems to be growing and conflicts increasing, the psalmist invites us to participate in the dream of God: to gather the dispersed and to make of everyone one people. The Lord, the master architect, prepares the city where his people will live. Into that city he gathers the dispersed and takes care of the weakest: “healing broken hearts and binding their wounds.” Certainly, if we look at the condition in which our cities find themselves, we see more conflicts than peace, more abandonment than welcoming, more closing out of others than solidarity. And it is in this way that the designs of the arrogant seem to trump those of the weak. But the psalmist assures us: “The Lord lifts up the downtrodden; he casts the wicked to the ground.” Bible faith drives the belief to trust in the Lord and obey his word. He is the defender of the poor and the weak against those who want to oppress and humiliate. The Lord never abandons his people. The psalmist has presented the Lord as an architect of the peaceful cohabitation of his people and as the master of the heavens: “He counts the number of stars and counts each one by name.” This image suggests the Lord as creator of heaven and earth, who calls all the stars by name, as if they made up a heavenly army, and he sides in defence of his people, especially the poor. A firm faith in the Lord is what the psalmist transmits to us and which makes the humble people the Lord gathered strong.

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR

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!

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR