Memory of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. Memory also of Ananias, who baptized Paul, preached the Gospel and died a martyr. Pope John XXIII announces the decision to celebrate the Second Vatican Council. Today the week of prayer for the unity of Christians ends. Prayer for the unity of Christians. Particular memory of Christian communities in Asia and Oceania.
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Memory of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. Memory also of Ananias, who baptized Paul, preached the Gospel and died a martyr. Pope John XXIII announces the decision to celebrate the Second Vatican Council. Today the week of prayer for the unity of Christians ends. Prayer for the unity of Christians. Particular memory of Christian communities in Asia and Oceania.
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
Tobit 3,1-6
Then, sad at heart, I sighed and wept, and began this prayer of lamentation:
You are just, O Lord, and just are all your works. All your ways are grace and truth, and you are the Judge of the world.
Therefore, Lord, remember me, look on me. Do not punish me for my sins or for my needless faults or those of my ancestors.
For we have sinned against you and broken your commandments; and you have given us over to be plundered, to captivity and death, to be the talk, the laughing-stock and scorn of all the nations among whom you have dispersed us.
And now all your decrees are true when you deal with me as my faults deserve, and those of my ancestors. For we have neither kept your commandments nor walked in truth before you.
So now, do with me as you will; be pleased to take my life from me; so that I may be delivered from earth and become earth again. Better death than life for me, for I have endured groundless insult and am in deepest sorrow. Lord, be pleased to deliver me from this affliction. Let me go away to my everlasting home; do not turn your face from me, O Lord. Better death for me than life prolonged in the face of unrelenting misery: I can no longer bear to listen to insults.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Worn out by pain, Tobit does not turn in on himself, but lifts his voice to God in a sorrowful prayer. It is the first of the five prayers presented in the book of Tobit. Tobit begins with words of praise for the Lord, his justice, and his mercy. Tobit not only does not doubt God’s mercy, he exalts it. He asks God to turn his gaze towards him and to have mercy on him for his sins and those of his ancestors, which have caused so much tragedy and pain. The echoes of many pages of Scripture can be recognized in Tobit’s stern words. They are an example of how the words of Scripture can help us turn to the Lord in prayer. And it is significant that Tobit moves from the first person singular to the first person plural over the course of his prayer, identifying his own fate with the larger story of his people. This horizon should always be present in the prayer of believers. They are never alone before God, but always tied to a people, the community to which they belong and for which they should always invoke the Lord’s help and protection. The eyes of faith make Tobit see that the sad condition in which he and God’s own people find themselves is due to the fact that they have strayed away from God and his laws. Overcome by desperation, Tobit asks God to grant him death rather than leaving him in the situation into which he had fallen, just as Moses (Num 11:15), Elijah (1 Kings 19:14), and Jonah (Jon 4:3. 8) did before him; for "great is the sorrow within me" (v. 6), he says. On the contrary, in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus will ask the Father to take the bitter cup of death away from him, but he trusts in His will entirely. Tobit’s request to be released to go to the "eternal home" simply means going to the tomb where he would stay forever. Nonetheless, Tobit asks the Lord: "Do not, O Lord, turn your face away from me." This request will find its full answer in the revelation of the resurrection announced to us by Jesus, first through his words and then through the events of Easter.
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
