Memorial of the Presentation of the Mother of the Lord at the Temple. This feast, born in Jerusalem and celebrated in both the East and the West, remembers both the ancient temple and how Mary offered her life to the Lord. Read more
Memorial of the Presentation of the Mother of the Lord at the Temple. This feast, born in Jerusalem and celebrated in both the East and the West, remembers both the ancient temple and how Mary offered her life to the Lord.
Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.
The child you shall bear will be holy.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Matthew 12,46-50
He was still speaking to the crowds when suddenly his mother and his brothers were standing outside and were anxious to have a word with him. But to the man who told him this Jesus replied, 'Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?' And stretching out his hand towards his disciples he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers. Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The feast of the Presentation of Mary at the temple is linked to the dedication of the church of Saint Mary built near the temple in Jerusalem in the year 453. Mary the Theotókos (Mother of God), is the true temple in which the only sacrifice pleasing to God is offered. This memory is connected to the tradition of the apocryphal proto-Gospel of James, which narrates the consecration of Mary to God as an adolescent. It is a pious tradition that makes us think of the urgency of bringing to God the many adolescents of today who are often not only deprived of the beautiful things of existence, but sometimes even their lives. We need to make every effort to keep watch over the little ones, to protect them from a society that raises them at the school of selfishness and vanity, and to raise them instead at the school of the Gospel. The evangelist Matthew reports a Gospel scene that can remind us of the urgency of placing ourselves at the school of the Gospel. It is a passage that might seem harsh towards the Mother of Jesus, but in truth it is that path that Mary has always followed. We read that Jesus is in a house, and many people are gathered around him to listen to him. His relatives, with his mother, call for him. His relatives were "standing outside," the evangelist writes, referring to a distance which is more than just spatial. Only those who "stand inside" and listen to his word, Jesus says, are his true family. The Christian community is always born from listening to the Word of God, and it lives by listening to it. And we all need to be careful not to fall into the temptation of being "relatives" of Jesus, that is, of thinking that we no longer need to gather around him and listen to him, as having access to him is "natural" and can be taken for granted. In short, it is not enough to belong to the group of Christians to be saved. We need to go "inside" the community every day to listen to the Gospel as the Church communicates it. We cannot be disciples once and for all! We need to listen to the Gospel every day and welcome it in our heart. The example of Mary brought to the temple is a precious sign of all Christian communities to be schools of communion and love. And it is also essential for Christian families to work to communicate the faith to their children, starting when they are little, so that, like Jesus, they can grow in "wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour."
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
