EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Mother of the Lord
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Mother of the Lord


Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.
The child you shall bear will be holy.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Acts 5,12-16

The apostles worked many signs and miracles among the people. One in heart, they all used to meet in the Portico of Solomon.

No one else dared to join them, but the people were loud in their praise

and the numbers of men and women who came to believe in the Lord increased steadily. Many signs and wonders were worked among the people at the hands of the apostles

so that the sick were even taken out into the streets and laid on beds and sleeping-mats in the hope that at least the shadow of Peter might fall across some of them as he went past.

People even came crowding in from the towns round about Jerusalem, bringing with them their sick and those tormented by unclean spirits, and all of them were cured.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Solomon’s Portico was a place in the temple where Jesus usually stopped to teach. The apostles kept gathering in this place to continue that which their teacher had done. In fact, it was there that they started to talk about Jesus and his teaching, and there that they showed the same strength and mercy as their master. The author notes different behaviours in people: some did not "dare" to join while "the people held them in high esteem." From these notes we realize the complexity of the Christian community in the world. On one hand, the life of the believers goes always beyond the normal habits of people and in this sense they are never completely following the world. Christians are never totally contemporaneous of their generation; their hope for change projects them always beyond the present time. On the other hand, their lives cannot but raise admiration, even more attraction because of its beauty. The Christian community, obviously if it is faithful to the Gospel, does not aim to live for itself but to make the life of all better from the present time and to prospect a future of peace for all. All this is done through works and not words, indeed those signs that the inhabitants of Jerusalem were seeing with their eyes: "Now many signs and wonders were done among the people through the apostles." In effect, Acts synthetically retells the same scenes that we read about in the Gospels: many people go to the Portico and wherever the apostles go, they bring healing; many "carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, in order that Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he came by." Being covered by Peter’s shadow was to be enveloped by and under the guard of the love and mercy of God himself. It is not only a privilege Peter had: it is what the community is called to do even today. The poor, the sick and all those who are hit by the heat of the desert of love, which is so typical of our cities, wait for someone who may cover them with the shadow of mercy. They will find relief and strength to get up again and start again the path of their lives. The author does not fail to note that even people from cities close to Jerusalem ran to the apostles to receive healing. For the first time, the horizon of the community stretches out of Jerusalem. We could say that the push to go beyond, even geographically, the borders that people normally establish is written in the chromosomes of the first community. Love is always beyond.

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR

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