EVERYDAY PRAYER

Feast of the Assumption
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Feast of the Assumption

Feast of the Assumption of Mary Read more

Libretto DEL GIORNO
Feast of the Assumption
Wednesday, August 15

Feast of the Assumption of Mary


First Reading

Revelation 11,19; 12,1-6.10

Then the sanctuary of God in heaven opened, and the ark of the covenant could be seen inside it. Then came flashes of lightning, peals of thunder and an earthquake and violent hail. Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman, robed with the sun, standing on the moon, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant, and in labour, crying aloud in the pangs of childbirth. Then a second sign appeared in the sky: there was a huge red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and each of the seven heads crowned with a coronet. Its tail swept a third of the stars from the sky and hurled them to the ground, and the dragon stopped in front of the woman as she was at the point of giving birth, so that it could eat the child as soon as it was born. The woman was delivered of a boy, the son who was to rule all the nations with an iron sceptre, and the child was taken straight up to God and to his throne, while the woman escaped into the desert, where God had prepared a place for her to be looked after for twelve hundred and sixty days. Then I heard a voice shout from heaven, 'Salvation and power and empire for ever have been won by our God, and all authority for his Christ, now that the accuser, who accused our brothers day and night before our God, has been brought down.

Psalmody

Psalm 44

Antiphon

Let us sing to the Lord, our God and our King.

My heart overflows with noble words.
To the king I must speak the song I have made;
my tongue as nimble as the pen of a scribe.

You are the fairest of the children of men
and graciousness is poured upon your lips :
because God has blessed you for evermore.

O mighty one, gird your sword upon your thigh;
in splendour and state, ride on in triumph
for the cause of truth and goodness and right.

Take aim with your bow in your dread right hand.
Your arrows are sharp : peoples fall beneath you.
The foes of the king fall down and lose heart.

Your throne, O God, shall endure for ever.
A sceptre of justice is the sceptre of your kingdom.
Your love is for justice; your hatred for evil.

Therefore God, your God, has anointed you
with the oil of gladness above other kings :
your robes are fragrant with aloes and myrrh.

From the ivory palace you are greeted with music.
The daughters of kings are among your loved ones.
On your right stands the queen gold of Ophir.

Listen, O daughter, give ear to my words :
forget your own people and your father's house.

So will the king desire your beauty :
He is your lord, pay homage to him.

And the people of Tyre shall come with gifts,
the richest of the people shall seek your favour.

The daughter of the king is clothed with splendour,
her robes embroidered with pearls set in gold.

She is led to the king with her maiden companions.
They are escorted amid gladness and joy;
they pass within the palace of the king.

Sons shall be yours in place of your fathers :
you will make them princes over all the earth.

Make this song make you name for ever remembered
May the peoples praise you from age to age.

Second Reading

1 Corinthians 15,10-27a

but what I am now, I am through the grace of God, and the grace which was given to me has not been wasted. Indeed, I have worked harder than all the others -- not I, but the grace of God which is with me. Anyway, whether it was they or I, this is what we preach and what you believed. Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you be saying that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ cannot have been raised either, and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is without substance, and so is your faith. What is more, we have proved to be false witnesses to God, for testifying against God that he raised Christ to life when he did not raise him -- if it is true that the dead are not raised. For, if the dead are not raised, neither is Christ; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is pointless and you have not, after all, been released from your sins. In addition, those who have fallen asleep in Christ are utterly lost. If our hope in Christ has been for this life only, we are of all people the most pitiable. In fact, however, Christ has been raised from the dead, as the first-fruits of all who have fallen asleep. As it was by one man that death came, so through one man has come the resurrection of the dead. Just as all die in Adam, so in Christ all will be brought to life; but all of them in their proper order: Christ the first-fruits, and next, at his coming, those who belong to him. After that will come the end, when he will hand over the kingdom to God the Father, having abolished every principality, every ruling force and power. For he is to be king until he has made his enemies his footstool, and the last of the enemies to be done away with is death, for he has put all things under his feet. But when it is said everything is subjected, this obviously cannot include the One who subjected everything to him.

Reading of the Gospel

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Luke 1,39-56

Mary set out at that time and went as quickly as she could into the hill country to a town in Judah. She went into Zechariah's house and greeted Elizabeth. Now it happened that as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She gave a loud cry and said, 'Of all women you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Why should I be honoured with a visit from the mother of my Lord? Look, the moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leapt for joy. Yes, blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.' And Mary said: My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour; because he has looked upon the humiliation of his servant. Yes, from now onwards all generations will call me blessed, for the Almighty has done great things for me. Holy is his name, and his faithful love extends age after age to those who fear him. He has used the power of his arm, he has routed the arrogant of heart. He has pulled down princes from their thrones and raised high the lowly. He has filled the starving with good things, sent the rich away empty. He has come to the help of Israel his servant, mindful of his faithful love -according to the promise he made to our ancestors -- of his mercy to Abraham and to his descendants for ever. Mary stayed with her some three months and then went home.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Homily

In the heart of the month of August, the Churches of the East and the West together celebrate the feast of the Assumption of Mary. Saint Theodore of Stadium, astonished by the truth of this feast, asked himself, "What words will I use to explain your mystery? My mind is in difficulty...your mystery is uncommon and sublime: it transcends all of our ideas." And he added, "She who became a mother by giving birth remained as intact as a virgin, because it was God who was generated. Thus, in your living formation, unlike all others, you alone rightfully put on the glory of the complete person, body and soul." And he concluded, "You have fallen asleep, yes, but not to die. You have been assumed into heaven, but you do not stop protecting the human family."
Today's feast reminds us of the last leg of the journey Mary undertook immediately after the angel's greeting. We heard from the Gospel according the Luke that Mary "set out at that time and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country." In those days, Mary hurried from Galilee to a town near Jerusalem in order to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Today, we see her hurry towards the mountain of the heavenly Jerusalem to encounter at last the face of the Father and of the Son. It must be said that Mary never left her son's side during her earthly life. We saw her fleeing to Egypt with the little Jesus, then she brought him as a teenager to Jerusalem, and then for thirty years she watched over him daily in Nazareth, keeping everything in her heart. She then followed him when he left Galilee in order to preach in every town and village. She was with him at the foot of the cross.
Today we see her reach the mountain of God, "clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars," (Rev 12:1) and enter into heaven, through the heavenly Jerusalem. She was the first believer who welcomed the Word of God, and now she is the first to be taken into heaven. She was the first person to take Jesus in her arms when he was still a child, and now she is the first to be taken into the arms of the Son to be assumed into heaven. Because she welcomed the Gospel, a humble girl from a tiny village that was lost on the edges of the empire has become the first citizen of heaven, assumed by God and placed beside the throne of the Son. Truly, the Lord has pulled the powerful down from their thrones and raised up the lowly. The mystery we are celebrating today is great indeed. It is Mary's mystery, but also it is the mystery of each one of us, and the very mystery of history. In fact, all those who bind their lives to the Son as Mary did will follow her on the path opened up by her assumption. If, at the beginning of history, Adam and Eve were defeated by the evil one, in the fullness of time Jesus with Mary, the new Adam and the new Eve, defeat the enemy once and for all. With Jesus' victory over evil, even death, both physical and interior, is defeated. The resurrection of the Son and the assumption of Mary stand out clearly against the horizon of history. The apostle Paul writes, "For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ."
Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven speaks to us about our future: we too, in our body, will stand next to the Lord. One could say that the full victory of the resurrection begins with today's feast: the new heavens and the new earth announced by Revelations begin today. The celestial Jerusalem is starting to be inhabited, and it is beginning its life of peace, justice, and love. Mary's Magnificat can rightly become our song, the song of the whole of humanity, as it sees the Lord bend down and touch all men and women, humble creatures that they are, and take them with him into heaven. Today, united with the humble woman from Galilee, we hear the particularly festive Magnificat sung by all those nameless women whom no one remembers, those poor women crushed by the weight of life and by the tragedy of violence who finally feel themselves embraced by strong and affectionate hands that lift them up and lead them into heaven. Today the Lord has pulled the powerful down from their thrones and lifted up the humble and unknown women. The Lord has sent the rich and powerful away empty-handed and has filled the women who hunger for bread, love, friendship and tenderness with good things.

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