Feast of the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth.
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Feast of the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth.
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 2,22-36
'Men of Israel, listen to what I am going to say: Jesus the Nazarene was a man commended to you by God by the miracles and portents and signs that God worked through him when he was among you, as you know.
This man, who was put into your power by the deliberate intention and foreknowledge of God, you took and had crucified and killed by men outside the Law.
But God raised him to life, freeing him from the pangs of Hades; for it was impossible for him to be held in its power since,
as David says of him: I kept the Lord before my sight always, for with him at my right hand nothing can shake me.
So my heart rejoiced my tongue delighted; my body, too, will rest secure,
for you will not abandon me to Hades or allow your holy one to see corruption.
You have taught me the way of life, you will fill me with joy in your presence.
'Brothers, no one can deny that the patriarch David himself is dead and buried: his tomb is still with us.
But since he was a prophet, and knew that God had sworn him an oath to make one of his descendants succeed him on the throne,
he spoke with foreknowledge about the resurrection of the Christ: he is the one who was not abandoned to Hades, and whose body did not see corruption.
God raised this man Jesus to life, and of that we are all witnesses.
Now raised to the heights by God's right hand, he has received from the Father the Holy Spirit, who was promised, and what you see and hear is the outpouring of that Spirit.
For David himself never went up to heaven, but yet he said: The Lord declared to my Lord, take your seat at my right hand,
till I have made your enemies your footstool.
'For this reason the whole House of Israel can be certain that the Lord and Christ whom God has made is this Jesus whom you crucified.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
In his speech to the peoples of the earth, Peter announces that Jesus has defeated evil and death and established a new and beautiful world for all. The young prophet from Nazareth, after having worked miracles and healed many, freely and willingly handed himself over to the violence of evil. He was condemned to death and put on a cross. But the Father has raised him to life, "freeing him from the pains of death." His obedience to God, his abandoning himself to the will of the Father, and his limitless love for humanity has won him the resurrection. The apostle Peter quotes Psalm 16 in which David sings the unlimited trust in God of the believer even in front of threats of death: "I saw the Lord always before me ... 27For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One experience corruption." Peter applies this Bible passage to Jesus and he says clearly to the gathered crowd: "God raised this man Jesus to life." This declaration has crossed the centuries and reached us; indeed, it is given to us so that we might in turn communicate it to the next generation. The preaching of the Gospel of Easter continues in history through the words of the disciples of every time so that all may welcome in their hearts the risen Jesus as the lord of life. It is the good news for which the world is waiting. Yes, human beings who feel lost in this global world are almost pushed to bend on themselves and their individual interests, but they need to hear that there is someone who can free and help them and the world to raise to a new life. The Jesus that Peter is announcing is the Jesus whom we can see in the Gospel, the one who loved all of humanity, so much that he took all of humanity’s sin on himself. It was this Jesus, who handing himself over to death because of his love, has conquered death and evil forever. If up until that moment death had always had the last word in life, then after that moment the opposite was true. Life had defeated death; love had defeated evil. What the prophets announced beforehand, now in Jesus has found its fulfilment. And through the testimony of the disciples of every age, Peter continues to say: "Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified."
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
