Remembrance of Zacchaeus who climbed a tree to see the Lord and received as a gift the conversion of his heart. Read more
Remembrance of Zacchaeus who climbed a tree to see the Lord and received as a gift the conversion of his heart.
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
Acts 5,17-33
Then the high priest intervened with all his supporters from the party of the Sadducees. Filled with jealousy, they arrested the apostles and had them put in the public gaol. But at night the angel of the Lord opened the prison gates and said as he led them out, 'Go and take up position in the Temple, and tell the people all about this new Life.' They did as they were told; they went into the Temple at dawn and began to preach. When the high priest arrived, he and his supporters convened the Sanhedrin -- this was the full Senate of Israel -- and sent to the gaol for them to be brought. But when the officials arrived at the prison they found they were not inside, so they went back and reported, 'We found the gaol securely locked and the warders on duty at the gates, but when we unlocked the door we found no one inside.' When the captain of the Temple and the chief priests heard this news they wondered what could be happening. Then a man arrived with fresh news. 'Look!' he said, 'the men you imprisoned are in the Temple. They are standing there preaching to the people.' The captain went with his men and fetched them -- though not by force, for they were afraid that the people might stone them. When they had brought them in to face the Sanhedrin, the high priest demanded an explanation. 'We gave you a strong warning', he said, 'not to preach in this name, and what have you done? You have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and seem determined to fix the guilt for this man's death on us.' In reply Peter and the apostles said, 'Obedience to God comes before obedience to men; it was the God of our ancestors who raised up Jesus, whom you executed by hanging on a tree. By his own right hand God has now raised him up to be leader and Saviour, to give repentance and forgiveness of sins through him to Israel. We are witnesses to this, we and the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.' This so infuriated them that they wanted to put them to death.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The high priest and the Sadducees, jealous of the apostles’ success, order their arrest. The text says that they are “full of envy.” We all know what kind of damage jealousy can cause and that it is the most diabolical of evil sentiments. In the book of Wisdom it is written that death entered the world through the jealousy of the devil. And because of jealousy, the apostles were put in prison. The preaching of the world of God was working real miracles, and the Christian community was growing in numbers and authority. Its actions countered the work of evil, which instead works to destroy the ability of humans to live together. And this is why the violence of evil struck the Christian community, just as it had struck Jesus. But the Lord does not abandon his disciples, and in the night an angel miraculously frees them from prison and orders them to go to the temple again to preach to the people. We could say that from that moment on it was impossible to keep the Word of God in chains. All the various Herods who in turn try to silence the Gospel will be defeated by the power of Jesus, which has defeated evil once and for all. Opposition to the Gospel and to those who listen to it and follow is a constant in the life of the Christian community. In recent years there has been no lack of those who continue the violent work of the prince of this world to silence the Gospel. Over the course of the last century millions of believers were struck by the fury of totalitarian regimes committed to shutting up the Gospel by imprisoning or killing its witnesses. But sooner or later the Gospel breaks every chain. It does not eliminate the jailors, of course; if anything, a prayer for them rises from the prisons, that they might convert to love. This is the mystery of evil, which continues to work, but which will not be able to prevail over the disciples of Jesus. The apostle Paul wrote to the Christians of Rome: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:35-39). The chief priests, blinded by envy, put the apostles in prison again, but again Peter and John repeat that they must obey God before human beings.
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
