Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a people acquired by God
to proclaim his marvellous works.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
John 17,11-19
I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep those you have given me true to your name, so that they may be one like us.
While I was with them, I kept those you had given me true to your name. I have watched over them and not one is lost except one who was destined to be lost, and this was to fulfil the scriptures.
But now I am coming to you and I say these things in the world to share my joy with them to the full.
I passed your word on to them, and the world hated them, because they belong to the world no more than I belong to the world.
I am not asking you to remove them from the world, but to protect them from the Evil One.
They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.
Consecrate them in the truth; your word is truth.
As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world,
and for their sake I consecrate myself so that they too may be consecrated in truth.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Lord is praying for his disciples. Even when faced with the imminence of his betrayal and passion, he does not weep over himself. He is moved by the trials that await his disciples; he recognizes that they will have to face very difficult trials. He is afraid for them, because he knows that the bitterness of life can cast doubt on the Gospel and make the Gospel seem like something useless or impossible to live. Jesus knows that the temptation to walk on their own makes the disciples weak. He can already see the fear and dispersion they will experience immediately after his capture. And yet he does not let their disappointment and their desperation win. The desire to preserve that little family prevails in him. It is a fragile family, but one that is protected by the foundation stone on which it was born, that is, Jesus’ love for each disciple, personally chosen and called by Him. Now He wants to protect them from the assault of evil. Jesus knows well that the last word does not belong to the evil one - even if he tries everything to show that the strength of violence is greater than the strength of love - but to him. Jesus is certain that the definitive victory over evil will be obtained by consecrating his life to men and women and rejecting the selfish logic of saving oneself at all costs. That is what the people shouted at him when he was on the cross: "Save yourself!" That is the Gospel of the world. But that is not the way it is among the disciples. Jesus insists that they are in the world without being slaves to its selfish way of thinking. Indeed, they have been chosen by him to communicate the gratuitous love that alone can defeat evil and death in every part of the world.
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
