EVERYDAY PRAYER

Sunday Vigil
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Sunday Vigil


Reading of the Word of God

Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory

Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.

Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory

Ecclesiastes 5,12-16

Something grossly unjust I observe under the sun: riches stored and turning to loss for their owner.

An unlucky venture, and those riches are lost; a son is born to him, and he has nothing to leave him.

Naked from his mother's womb he came; as naked as he came will he depart; not one of his achievements can he take with him.

And something else grossly unjust: that as he came, so must he go; what profit can he show after toiling to earn the wind,

as he spends the rest of his days in darkness, mourning, many sorrows, sickness and exasperation.

 

Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory

If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.

Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory

Qohelet continues to demonstrate the futility of riches as a path to happiness. In fact, those who place riches at the top of their own thoughts and make money the goal of life, condemn themselves to live their days "in darkness, in much vexation and sickness and resentment" (v. 17). The example he gives is incredibly current: the ease with which financial collapses can come, by which riches accumulated in banks become a calamity and a loss. It is enough to err in a transaction, or make a hazardous speculation, and the entire patrimony goes up in smoke (v. 13). And bankruptcy flows over to the children who see themselves deprived of the goods they hoped to enjoy (v. 12). The loss of the patrimony has rendered useless the labours which obtained it. And in any case death relativizes the toil for the heaping up of riches. Qohelet echoes Job’s statement: "Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there" (Job 1:21). The psalmist too writes: "Do not be afraid when some become rich, when the wealth of their houses increases. For when they die they will carry nothing away; their wealth will not go down after them" (49:16-17). And Paul to Timothy: "For we brought nothing into the world so that we cannot take out of it" (1 Tim 6:7). We all leave this world "naked" of goods. What sense is there -maintains Qohelet- to live for riches, making it the goal of life, if we must all leave them behind in death? True wisdom lies in entrusting ourselves to God: "This is what I have seen to be good: it is fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of the life God gives us" (v. 18). Joy lies in enjoying or experiencing the good, eating and drinking, by means of the patrimony acquired by one’s own work. Everything is God’s gift, even riches. They are to be enjoyed as a gift and not as a possession for oneself. The author does not ask himself why there are rich and poor. For Qohelet, happiness comes through the heart, not through the things that are possessed. The one who considers goods as a matter only for oneself will not get to enjoy them. The one who accepts them as a divine gift will know how to take satisfaction and enjoyment from them because he will share them with others. God himself provides so that humans "may scarcely brood over" (v. 19) about material things, but let their hearts be "preoccupied" with the things of God.

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