Reading of the Word of God
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
You are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a people acquired by God
to proclaim his marvellous works.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Ecclesiastes 7,11-24
Wisdom is as good as a legacy, profitable to those who enjoy the light of the sun.
For as money protects, so does wisdom, and the advantage of knowledge is this: that wisdom bestows life on those who possess her.
Consider God's creation: who, for instance, can straighten what God has bent?
When things are going well, enjoy yourself, and when they are going badly, consider this: God has designed the one no less than the other so that we should take nothing for granted.
In my futile life, I have seen everything: the upright person perishing in uprightness and the wicked person surviving in wickedness.
Do not be upright to excess and do not make yourself unduly wise: why should you destroy yourself?
Do not be wicked to excess, and do not be a fool: why die before your time?
It is wise to hold on to one and not let go of the other, since the godfearing will find both.
Wisdom makes the wise stronger than a dozen governors in a city.
No one on earth is sufficiently upright to do good without ever sinning.
Again, do not listen to all that people say, then you will not hear your servant abusing you.
For often, as you very well know, you have abused others.
Thanks to wisdom, I have found all this to be true; I resolved to be wise, but this was beyond my reach!
The past is out of reach, buried deep -- who can discover it?
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
According to the wisdom tradition transmitted by Qohelet, wisdom and money are considered to be the most precious treasures one can have (v. 11); they are like two shadows that protect (v. 12a). But Qohelet retorts that truly they are powerless and are not an "advantage" if they can not enjoy what they have. And he invites us to be realistic: if God has made something curvy, not even the wisest can straighten it. Humans cannot establish the succession of good or sad days, change or transform them, or even foresee them; it is not in their power to direct at will the course of history. Human beings are left with nothing but enjoyment of the goods they have, and they must savour the days of joy that are given to them, while during sad days he is invited to "reflect" on the precariousness of human life. The course of life escapes human dominion and "mortals may not find out anything that will come after them" (v. 14). True wisdom is to enjoy whatever good the present has to offer, receiving it from the hand of God, and not to rebel during sad days. Qohelet, who greatly esteems wisdom, urges that we not fashion it as some sort of intangible fetish; it is a virtue to be applied realistically and with detachment. In fact, if wisdom and righteousness are not a sure guaranty of success, it is not worth it to spend one’s whole life only for them (v. 16); though, it is also true that since wickedness and foolishness are themselves not the solution to everything, it is not worth it to abandon oneself to them either (v. 17). The advice however, to not go overboard in righteousness or wickedness, remains paradoxical, for in each case one would head toward ruin: "it is good that you should take hold of the one, without letting go of the other" (v. 18). Qohelet does not, however, propose a sort of doctrine of the just medium, but asks that we live in the "fear of God," putting ourselves totally in his hands, because "God shall succeed" (v. 18).
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
