Memory of Saints Cosmas and Damien, Syrian martyrs. The tradition remembers them as doctors who took care of the sick for free. Special memory of those who dedicate their lives to the treatment and healing of the sick. The jews celebrate Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). Read more
Memory of Saints Cosmas and Damien, Syrian martyrs. The tradition remembers them as doctors who took care of the sick for free. Special memory of those who dedicate their lives to the treatment and healing of the sick. The jews celebrate Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement).
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
1 Chronicles 17, 1-15
It happened, once David had settled into his palace, that David said to the prophet Nathan, 'Here am I living in a cedar-wood palace, while the ark of the covenant of Yahweh is under awnings.'
Nathan said to David, 'Do whatever you have in mind, for God is with you.'
But that very night the word of God came to Nathan, as follows:
'Go and tell my servant David, "Yahweh says this: You must not build a temple for me to live in.
I have never lived in a house from the day when I brought Israel out until today, but have kept travelling from tent to tent and from shelter to shelter.
In all my travels with all Israel, did I say to any of the judges of Israel, whom I had commanded to shepherd my people: Why do you not build me a cedar-wood temple?
This is what you must say to my servant David: Yahweh Sabaoth says this: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, to be leader of my people Israel.
I have been with you wherever you went; I have got rid of all your enemies for you. I am going to make your fame like that of the greatest men on earth.
I am going to provide a place for my people Israel; I shall plant them there and there they will live and never be disturbed again; nor will they be oppressed by the wicked as they were in former times
ever since I instituted judges to govern my people Israel; I shall subdue all your enemies. Yahweh moreover tells you that he will build you a dynasty.
And when your days are over and you have gone to join your ancestors, I shall appoint your heir -- who will be one of your sons -- to succeed you, and I shall make his sovereignty secure.
He will build a temple for me and I shall make his throne secure for ever.
I shall be his father and he will be my son, and I shall not withdraw my favour from him, as I withdrew it from your predecessor.
I shall set him over my temple and kingdom for ever and his throne will be for ever secure." '
Nathan related all these words and this whole revelation to David.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
This first part of the seventeenth chapter is the heart of the book of Chronicles, which is God’s promise to David to give him eternal offspring. The narrative opens with a reflection of David to the prophet Nathan. It recounts the story already narrated in the Second Book of Samuel (ch. 7) with the addition of various touches. David confides to the prophet his painfulness, in seeing that the ark of the Lord is in a tent while he lives in a house. The Lord’s answer, reported by the prophet, compels us to think that the plan to build a temple does not belong so much to the initiative of David, but to God himself. The Lord wants to claim the gratuitousness of his love for Israel, noting that he freed his people from slavery and accompanied them for years without ever asking for anything in exchange: "Wherever I have moved about among all Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people, saying, Why have you not built me a house of cedar?" (v.6). It is the claiming of God’s free love; through the mouth of the prophet, the Lord continues: "I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, to be ruler over my people Israel; and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies before you; and I will make for you a name, like the name of the great ones of the earth" (v.7). This is what the Lord never ceases to do with each of his children, even today. It is He who will provide to "appoint a place for [his] people Israel, and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall wear them down no more, as they did formerly, ... [he] will subdue all your enemies. Moreover, [he] declares to you that the Lord will build you a house" (w. 9-10). Yes, the parties have reversed: it is not David who builds a house for God, but it is the opposite. It is the Lord who builds a place where his people may live securely, where they no longer have to fear, where he can live in the certainty of having a Father who loves and defends him. The text, as in Samuel, says it will be the son of David who will build the temple. The sacred author, however, moves beyond Solomon and makes us think about the "messiah". We are, in effect, at the origin of the Jewish messianism. The figure of the "son of God", as it appears in the text, excludes every type of disobedience; for this reason, there are no mentions of the transgressions of the descendants of David with the ensuing punishments. The sacred author pushes the thought of the messianic king. The words that the Lord addresses to the future king, "I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from him who was before you," (v. 13), underline the loving profundity in the rapport that is established between God and his people. The prophecy of Nathan supersedes the moment in which it was pronounced and announces the stability of the reign that the Lord established on earth: "I will confirm him in my house and in my kingdom forever, and his throne shall be established forever" (v. 14). This prophecy finds its full realization in Jesus and in his Church, the house that he has given us so that we may live there.
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
