EVERYDAY PRAYER

Ash Wednesday
Word of god every day

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday
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Libretto DEL GIORNO
Ash Wednesday

Homily

Lent, which is a season laden with history, unfortunately seems to be increasingly emptying itself of significance in a distracted world, where even carnival is more present and has more of an impact. We could say that it plays a diminished role in our own lives in comparison to the forceful role of our own personal interests, or of those pursued by groups and nations; therefore, it is no longer relevant or visible. And yet, humankind and the world have an enormous need for the "non-sense" of the Lenten period. The Christian Churches are called to ward off the risk of debasing the "strength" of these forty days of penance, fasting, almsgiving, and prayer. The prophet Joel conveys God’s passionate and strong summons: "Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning" (2:12). The prophet, worried about the people of Israel’s lack of sensitivity, comments on God’s invitation: "Rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing" (2:13). Lent is the opportune time to return to God and to understand anew both oneself and the meaning of life in the world.
The liturgy comes to us with the ancient sign of ashes, which, though remote from our rationalism and sense of modernism, yet still so authentic, return with great reality. Those ashes, accompanied with the biblical expression "Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return," certainly signify penance and petition for pardon, but above all, a simple thing: we are all dust; we are all weak and fragile. The men and women who elevate themselves and feel powerful (and each one of us has his or her own ways of elevating ourselves and feeling powerful), tomorrow will be no longer anything. That person (or even that nation) who elevates himself or herself, feeling powerful and showing off weapons, risks discovering being tragically weak in the future. We are all dust! And the ashes upon our head remind us of this. This sentence is not meant to increase our fear much less push us towards mutual elimination. In Christian life, weakness and fragility are decisive aspects of life, even if we continuously try to escape them. These aspects, and not strength, push us to seek what unites, and to try in all ways to find the paths of coming together and collaborating.
There is a liberating sense in not always having to pretend to be strong or blameless or without contradictions. True strength lies in taking account of one’s own weakness and keeping alive the sense of humility and meekness: "Blessed are the meek - says Jesus - for they will inherit the earth" (Mt 5:5). The symbol of the ashes is therefore more real than ever. It is an austere sign and so is the Lenten season. It has been given to us to help us live better and make us understand how great God’s love is; He has chosen to bind himself with weak and fragile people like us. And to us, the weak and fragile, he has entrusted the great gift of peace so that we may live it, guard it, defend it, and build it. In too many parts of the world, peace is squandered on a daily basis. It is squandered in the suffering of so many people crushed by violence. The words of the prophet Joel resound strongly even today: "Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even the infants at the breast. ... Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep. ...Then the Lord became jealous for his land, and had pity on his people" (Joel 2:15-18). The Lord is jealous for his land and compassionate for his people! It is precisely his jealousy and his compassion that makes us, as Paul writes to the Corinthians, "ambassadors for Christ." Our strength is hidden here: the Lord has taken the dust, which is what we are, to make us "ambassadors" of peace and reconciliation.
We Christians are called to be sentinels of peace in the places where we live and work. We are asked to be watchful, so that our consciences do not yield to the temptation of selfishness, deceit, and violence. Fasting and prayer make us sentinels, alert and watchful, so that the sleep of resignation, which considers war inevitable, does not overtake us; so that the sleep of acquiescence to evil, which continues to oppress the world, is warded off; so that we cut off at the root the sleep of that lazy realism which makes us turn inward onto ourselves and to our own interests. In today’s Gospel, Jesus himself exhorts the disciples to fast and pray in order to divest themselves of all pride and arrogance and to dispose ourselves towards prayer in order to receive God’s gifts. Our strengths alone are not enough to ward off evil; we need to call upon the Lord’s help; He is the only one who is able to give humankind that peace which we do not know how to give ourselves.

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR

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!

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR