In the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere the Community of Sant'Egidio prays for peace. Memorial of Saint Sergii Radonezhsky of the Russian church. He founded the Lavra (monastery) of the Most Holy Trinity near Moscow. Remembrance of the evangelical pastor Paul Schneider who died in the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald on July 18, 1939. Read more
In the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere the Community of Sant’Egidio prays for peace. Memorial of Saint Sergii Radonezhsky of the Russian church. He founded the Lavra (monastery) of the Most Holy Trinity near Moscow. Remembrance of the evangelical pastor Paul Schneider who died in the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald on July 18, 1939.
Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Micah 6,1-4.6-8
Now listen to what Yahweh says: 'Stand up, state your case to the mountains and let the hills hear what you have to say!' Listen, mountains, to the case as Yahweh puts it, give ear, you foundations of the earth, for Yahweh has a case against his people and he will argue it with Israel. 'My people, what have I done to you, how have I made you tired of me? Answer me! For I brought you up from Egypt, I ransomed you from the place of slave-labour and sent Moses, Aaron and Miriam to lead you. 'With what shall I enter Yahweh's presence and bow down before God All-high? Shall I enter with burnt offerings, with calves one year old? Will he be pleased with rams by the thousand, with ten thousand streams of oil? Shall I offer my eldest son for my wrong-doing, the child of my own body for my sin? 'You have already been told what is right and what Yahweh wants of you. Only this, to do what is right, to love loyalty and to walk humbly with your God.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
"O my people, what have I done to you? In that I have grieved? In what have I wearied you? Answer me!" This is the lament of God, who cannot be at peace with Israel’s betrayal. He did everything to free his people from slavery in Egypt. He then accompanied them on their journey through the desert and led them to the Promised Land. And yet Israel forgot God’s merciful faithfulness and decided to stray and obstinately follow its own paths, which were far from the Lord’s and which always led to defeat and slavery. The pride of self-affirmation makes us blind and foolish. The Liturgy of the Church has understood the depth of the bitterness of God’s loving lament and places it on Jesus’s lips during the celebration of Good Friday: "O my people, what have I done to you?" From the height of the Cross, Jesus speaks this refrain, questioning each of us about our distance. While God’s story with us has been a story of unbounded love, our story with God has been cold, disconnected, and sometimes even cruel. There is no tone of condemnation in Jesus’s lament, there is only a love that cannot be at peace with our distance and our coldness. Let us listen to these words: our hearts will be touched, and we will respond like the man of faith: "With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high?’ Before the voice of the Lord, who reminds us of his faithfulness and his love, every believer should first of all feel his or her own limits and inadequacy. How can we reciprocate this love? The prophet’s words illuminate our path: "He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" In order to live this out, we are called to learn "what is good." And it is the Word of God that shows us. We are disciples who always need to learn from the Lord’s love.
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
