Reading of the Word of God
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.
The child you shall bear will be holy.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Matthew 6,7-15
'In your prayers do not babble as the gentiles do, for they think that by using many words they will make themselves heard. Do not be like them; your Father knows what you need before you ask him. So you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be held holy, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven those who are in debt to us. And do not put us to the test, but save us from the Evil One. 'Yes, if you forgive others their failings, your heavenly Father will forgive you yours; but if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive your failings either.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Today Jesus gives us the gift of his prayer: The Our Father. First of all, he warns us that prayer is not saying many words as if the amount was important and not the heart with which they are pronounced. Rather he wants to show us the way of direct prayer, the prayer that immediately goes to the heart of God. No one else but him could teach it. Only he is the perfect Son, who knows the Father in depth, and could give us these words that mark the lives of Christians since always and wherever. Loving his disciples with a love without limits, Jesus teaches them the highest prayer that God cannot help but listen. And we understand it from the first word: "Abba" (dad). With this simple wordit is the one that all little children say to their fatherJesus makes a real religious revolution compared to the Jewish tradition which could not even call the holy name of God: with this start, Jesus involves us in his intimacy with his Father. He is not "lowering down" his Father, but rather we are lifted up to heaven, to the very heart of God who is "in heaven", so much so that we call Him "dad". The Father, even though in heaven, is the one who has been loving us forever and wants our salvation and that of the entire world. Therefore, it is decisive that Jesus has us ask for the fulfilment of God's will and the will of the Father is that no one is lost. This is the sense of our invocation: "your kingdom come." It is the time when the holiness of God will be eventually recognized and the whole humanity will live in justice and peace everywhere, in heaven and on earth. In the second part of prayer Jesus makes us ask the father to look at our daily life: we ask for breadfor our bodies and our hearts. And then we dare with a demanding request in fact a very demanding one: "Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." This request may seem hard and unreal, how can we admit that human forgiveness is a model for the divine one? Indeed, Jesus helps us say an extraordinary wisdom in prayer. We understand it in the following verses: "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." This language is incomprehensible for a society, like ours often is, in which forgiveness is rare, if not totally banned, and in any case, rancour is a tree that we cannot eradicate. But perhaps that is why we still need to learn to pray the "Our Father." It is the prayer which saves us because it makes us discover universal brotherhood when we turn to God and invoke him as the Father of 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
