The prayer for peace is held in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere.
Feast of Mary of Mount Carmel.
Read more
The prayer for peace is held in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere.
Feast of Mary of Mount Carmel.
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
Matthew 10,34-11,1
'Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth: it is not peace I have come to bring, but a sword. For I have come to set son against father, daughter against mother, daughter-in-law against mother-in-law; a person's enemies will be the members of his own household. 'No one who prefers father or mother to me is worthy of me. No one who prefers son or daughter to me is worthy of me. Anyone who does not take his cross and follow in my footsteps is not worthy of me. Anyone who finds his life will lose it; anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it. 'Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 'Anyone who welcomes a prophet because he is a prophet will have a prophet's reward; and anyone who welcomes an upright person because he is upright will have the reward of an upright person. 'If anyone gives so much as a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is a disciple, then in truth I tell you, he will most certainly not go without his reward.' When Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples he moved on from there to teach and preach in their towns.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Jesus asks the disciples a radical love. If we allow ourselves to be loved, then we can understand Jesus' request, which might otherwise be considered excessive. In fact, he has been the first to love his friends more than anyone else and more than his life. In loving Jesus more than anyone else we can really learn to loves everyone. Only the one who has this love is "worthy" of the Lord. Three times, within a few lines, he repeats: "to be worthy of me." But who can say he or she is worthy of welcoming the Lord? If each one of us could look at our lives realistically we would be aware of our smallness and sinfulness. To be Jesus' disciples is neither easy nor granted and it is not fruit of birth or tradition. You may be a Christian only by choice, not by birth. Jesus' disciples are called to love Him above all. This is their only way to find meaning in life. This is why Jesus could say, "Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it." This is a recurrent sentence in the Gospel: it appears six times. The disciples "find" their life again in the resurrection when they "lose" it, that is, when they surrender it even to death for announcing the Gospel. This understanding of "finding" and losing" is in direct opposition with that of the world which impels us to think that happiness is found in the self-satisfaction of clinging to our lives, our time, our wealth, our interests. On the contrary, the disciple finds happiness in living for others and not only for him/her. This is a human truth: love is ours only when it is given! We are almost at the end of this "handbook" of the missionary disciples, as Chapter ten of Matthew's Gospel can be called - in which Jesus gives a few pointers to the disciples about welcoming. He says, "Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me." The dignity of the disciple stems from his/her identification with the Teacher; in fact, he/she brings no other word but God's. Jesus calls them "little ones." The only wealth the disciples possess is the Gospel, before which even they are little and totally dependent. We have to welcome this wealth and share it.
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
