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
Luke 11, 42-46
But alas for you Pharisees, because you pay your tithe of mint and rue and all sorts of garden herbs and neglect justice and the love of God! These you should have practised, without neglecting the others.
Alas for you Pharisees, because you like to take the seats of honour in the synagogues and to be greeted respectfully in the market squares!
Alas for you, because you are like the unmarked tombs that people walk on without knowing it!'
A lawyer then spoke up. 'Master,' he said, 'when you speak like this you insult us too.'
But he said, 'Alas for you lawyers as well, because you load on people burdens that are unendurable, burdens that you yourselves do not touch with your fingertips.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
A doctor of the law listening to Jesus’ harsh words against the pharisaic empty ritualism reacts by saying that Jesus offends also him and his colleagues: "Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us too." This is the reaction of those who want to defend themselves and their convictions without sensing the need to change, to understand more deeply what the Lord asks, and thus to undertake a better life than the one they are leading. Besides as Paul says, the Word of God is like a double-edged sword that cuts to the marrow and does not leave indifferent. If we listen with the pride and the sense of self-sufficiency common to people who feel the need to defend themselves, we will hear the Word as an offensive reproach and not a good and salutary force that helps us to change our hearts. Jesus unmasks the sin of the Pharisees and scribes who behave falsely, as they are regarded by the people with respect because they seek them as guides, for orientation. From here comes the severity of Jesus’ judgment. The people trust, seek, ask for help from those who "appear" to be guides, but who on the contrary neglect "justice and the love of God." They pay their dues at the temple, they let themselves be regaled with honours in the synagogues, but in reality they are like "sepulchres," that is, empty persons and dead inside. They place, with their cold harshness, heavy burdens on the backs of people but they neither want to nor know how to lift them. This falsity, this duplicitous and deceitful disposition is chastised by Jesus. His anger and his harsh judgment are an admonition for all of us when we rise up to judge without mercy, taking advantage of the good faith of those who seek older brothers and sisters in whom to trust in order to grow in the spiritual life.
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
