EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Saints and the Prophets
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Saints and the Prophets
Wednesday, October 23


Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

You are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a people acquired by God
to proclaim his marvellous works.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Romans 6,12-18

That is why you must not allow sin to reign over your mortal bodies and make you obey their desires; or give any parts of your bodies over to sin to be used as instruments of evil. Instead, give yourselves to God, as people brought to life from the dead, and give every part of your bodies to God to be instruments of uprightness; and then sin will no longer have any power over you -- you are living not under law, but under grace. What is the implication? That we are free to sin, now that we are not under law but under grace? Out of the question! You know well that if you undertake to be somebody's slave and obey him, you are the slave of him you obey: you can be the slave either of sin which leads to death, or of obedience which leads to saving justice. Once you were slaves of sin, but thank God you have given whole-hearted obedience to the pattern of teaching to which you were introduced; and so, being freed from serving sin, you took uprightness as your master.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The apostle has declared that believers are "dead to sin" because they have been reached by baptism, the moment of grace, which allows them to partake in the Resurrection of Christ. Now he makes it clear that this moment of grace does not act magically on believers, but unleashes a dynamic and responsible vitality. Even though they are "dead to sin", believers must still work every day to keep from being dominated by it. Christians are given the energy and the strength needed to stand up to sin and the perverse logic with which it tries to dominate the human heart. The apostle then urges his readers to choose between obedience to the instinct of the old self and obedience to the new self, guided by the Spirit. If the first is an instinctive obedience, and therefore a kind of slavery, the second instead requires a choice and constant vigilance. The life of a believer is always a struggle between these two forces: the same struggle that Jesus experienced as he fought against evil until he defeated it. Through his death and resurrection Jesus has deprived sin of its unstoppable force. Evil has been defeated for ever. However, it is still waiting in ambush, as is written in the book of Genesis: "And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door" (Gen 4:6). By choosing to obey the Spirit, the believer's life becomes a joyful and generous offering to the Lord and to his or her brothers and sisters. Jesus lived his earthly existence as a total offering to the Father for the salvation of all men and women. We, the disciples of the last hour, are called to follow him on this same road. It is the only way to be free from the dominion of sin, which seeks to submit us to its wishes in everything. But God, who knows our weakness, makes his grace abound for us.

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