EVERYDAY PRAYER

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Sunday of the Ascension
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Libretto DEL GIORNO

Homily

Today we contemplate the mystery of Jesus who "ascends" to heaven. The disciples have asked if the moment had finally arrived in which he would restore the kingdom of Israel. It was an important question, as if saying: "Can we finally not have to worry anymore? Have we overcome evil once for all? When will you definitively demonstrate that you are the Messiah?" It was not the first time that they asked Jesus if the moment had arrived in which everything would be revealed and everything would be cleared up. In this question perhaps lies the lazy desire to not have to toil anymore against divisions and difficulties, but also the expectation of weak and uncertain disciples confronting a hostile world marked by evil. It is a question which rears its head particularly when we see evil come down around us. When will love win and death be defeated forever? When will human tears be wiped? Jesus does not answer this question posed by his own. We grasp so little about life that we easily reduce it to that which I understand, to my things, to that which I experience. Life, Jesus seems to suggest, is quite larger, and it is certainly not up to us to know the times and moments! But the Lord does not leave us alone and promises the true strength, that of the Spirit of love which comes down upon his disciples.
Jesus has gone up to the heavenly sanctuary, a temple not made by human hands, as are our churches. And yet each time we celebrate the holy liturgy we are enwrapped in the very mystery of the Ascension. Each Sunday when we enter our churches are we not received into the presence of God? Do we not live together with Jesus the mystery of the ascension? From the pulpit, as from the mountain, Jesus speaks to his own and blesses them. And the cloud which enveloped him hiding him from the eyes of his own, is it not perhaps like the cloud of incense which surrounds the altar and which enwraps the holy bread and the cup of salvation as they are raised up to heaven?
Jesus’ ascent to heaven does not mean that he has gone far from his disciples. It rather means that he has arrived at the Father and has sat down beside him in glory. To ascend means to enter into a definitive relationship with God. On high is not to be understood in a spatial sense, or, if we so wish to understand it, it means that Jesus is present everywhere: as heaven covers us and is spread around us, thus the Lord, ascending to heaven, covers us and is around everyone. I would say even more; Jesus ascended into heaven enwraps and covers the whole earth, as the heaven enwraps the whole earth. It is not then a going away. If anything it is a drawing close which is more encompassing and enveloping. If it were not so we could not understand the joy of the disciples. How is it possible to rejoice while the Lord has gone away? And yet Luke writes: "After having adored him, the disciples went back to Jerusalem with great joy." The apostles are not only not sad because of the separation; they are even full of joy because of a new fullness of Jesus’ presence.
What has taken place? That day the disciples lived a profound religious experience; that is, they have experienced that the Lord was now definitively with them with his Word and with his Spirit; a proximity no doubt more mysterious, but perhaps even more real than before. Without doubt the words they recalled the words they had heard from Jesus: "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in their midst" (Mt 18:20). On that day of the ascension they understood them in all their depth: in whatever part of the earth, in whatever age, in whatever hour, if two or more disciples of the Lord were gathered together, He would be in their midst. From that moment on Jesus’ presence would be even greater in space and time; forever he would accompany the disciples, anywhere and anyway. Hence the reason for the great joy. No one in the world could ever distance Jesus from their life. This joy of the disciples is now our joy.
Heaven seems to be a dimension that is not too concrete, far away, almost an unreachable dream, that may enchant because of its beauty, but which has nothing to do with our concrete choices. Earthly life seems to be one thing and the heavenly one quite another. In reality there is continuity in life. The risen Jesus does not appear to his own with a new and perfect body but with his same one marked by history, by violence. The risen Jesus, a man of earth and heaven, is not a ghost, even the most beautiful one. The concreteness of the risen Jesus establishes precisely this bond between life on earth and life in heaven. The apostle Paul solemnly affirms in the letter to the Colossians that "it pleased God to make all fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile all things to himself, everything that is on earth and those which are in heaven" (Col 1:19-20). The Ascension shows us the future that God has in store for his children. It is the heaven Jesus has arrived at, where, as he had said, he has gone to prepare a place for us, so that we too may be where he is. And he takes us with him starting today. Jesus’ disciples have not solved all their problems: they are weak persons, lacking in faith, full of fear. But we can be witnesses of this love always and unto the ends of the earth. That is, to all, even to those we do not take into account or whom we feel we have the right to treat badly. We shall find a bit of heaven in the life of each one and we too shall be heavenly persons.

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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