Memory of the saints Addai and Mari, founders of the Chaldean church.
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Memory of the saints Addai and Mari, founders of the Chaldean church.
Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Acts 2,1-13
When Pentecost day came round, they had all met together,
when suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of a violent wind which filled the entire house in which they were sitting;
and there appeared to them tongues as of fire; these separated and came to rest on the head of each of them.
They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak different languages as the Spirit gave them power to express themselves.
Now there were devout men living in Jerusalem from every nation under heaven,
and at this sound they all assembled, and each one was bewildered to hear these men speaking his own language.
They were amazed and astonished. 'Surely,' they said, 'all these men speaking are Galileans?
How does it happen that each of us hears them in his own native language?
Parthians, Medes and Elamites; people from Mesopotamia, Judaea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya round Cyrene; residents of Rome-
Jews and proselytes alike -- Cretans and Arabs, we hear them preaching in our own language about the marvels of God.'
Everyone was amazed and perplexed; they asked one another what it all meant.
Some, however, laughed it off. 'They have been drinking too much new wine,' they said.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Fifty days had passed since Easter and the apostles, as usual, gathered together in the upper room to pray. All at once a violent wind shook the walls of the house and there appeared tongues as of fire that rested on each of the apostles. It was an incredible experience, which transformed them completely: from being fearful into being filled with courage. They opened the door that had been closed for fifty days and that had not even opened to Jesus on the day of his resurrection. And they immediately started to proclaim the mystery of salvation that was fulfilled with the death and resurrection of Jesus, the just man who had been crucified a few weeks before, but whom they had met as risen. The descent of the Holy Spirit deeply changed the apostles. Those tongues of fire meant a new burning truth, a truth that changed and urged them to take the first steps out into the ways of the world. Pentecost marks the beginning of the Church. And it started with the Holy Spirit that changed the hearts, the minds, and the tongues of that small and frightened group of disciples. We can compare Pentecost to Jesus’ Baptism when "the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove" (Lk 3:22). As Jesus started his public life "full of the Holy Spirit" (Lk 4:1), in the same way the disciples opened the doors and started to communicate the Gospel to the world. This is why we still need a Pentecost. The Christian communities ought to be filled with that violent wind that changed the frightened disciples so that they proclaimed the Gospel to the generation of this beginning millennium throughout the world and with great audacity. Without Pentecost, the world will continue to be grey and sad. Mostly, the world will have a hard time shaking off that dictatorship of materialism that drives the lives of people into the ground, leaving no hope for justice and peace in their future. Pentecost opens to the disciples a new horizon that is large and universal and which does not know any limits, whether social, geographical, cultural or racial. Before the door of the upper room are gathered symbolically all the peoples of the world that were known at that time. Everyone is there, no one is excluded, not even those "foreigners" from Rome, the capital of the Empire. It is not just by chance that the author puts Rome at the beginning of Peter’s preaching. The community of the disciples had not even started to take its first steps and yet it has already welcomed the heart of the large Empire into its horizon of love. All those people gathering before Peter were able to hear the one and the same Gospel, even though each was able to understand it in their own language. This is the miracle of love that succeeds in unity while respecting diversity. The confusion of languages, which divided humanity at Babel, is now conquered in the common language of the Holy Spirit, the language of love.
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
