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
Acts 7,58; 8,1-3
thrust him out of the city and stoned him. The witnesses put down their clothes at the feet of a young man called Saul.
Saul approved of the killing. That day a bitter persecution started against the church in Jerusalem, and everyone except the apostles scattered to the country districts of Judaea and Samaria.
There were some devout people, however, who buried Stephen and made great mourning for him.
Saul then began doing great harm to the church; he went from house to house arresting both men and women and sending them to prison.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
With the stoning of Stephen, so begins the history of Christian martyrs. The liturgy of the Church celebrates him as a protomartyr,’ the first born to heaven, on December 26. The martyr is not a hero’ but rather as disciple who follows Jesus till the end, that is giving his or her life for the good of others. Msgr. Romero, at the funeral of one priest who had been assassinated a few months before he himself was assassinated, said that all Christians are called to give their lives for others, to be martyrs,’ that is to say, witnesses to Jesus’ borderless love. Some receive the grace of giving their life to the point of shedding their blood, of dying. Stephen is the first. Already as a deacon he was spending his life helping the poor and preaching the gospel of love. Now he was requested to give his life till the end, till death. He imitated Jesus also in this martyr-like itinerary. While people were stoning him and his life was ending, Stephen turned to his teacher, like Jesus turned to the Father, and said: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," and, as he knelt down, partially because of the stones being thrown at him, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." For him, like for Jesus, there were no enemies. Stephen rather prayed for his persecutors, so that they might repent and change their hearts. The world easily and normally hates its enemies or those it thinks such. And yet, the world needs to be emptied from violence and filled with forgiveness. It is Stephen’s gift to the starting Church and to the world. His death nourished the earth with meek and borderless love. Maybe this is why at the end of the cruel stoning the author of Acts notes that Stephen "fell asleep" (KJV). It is not just a way to sweeten this violent and tragic death, but it is rather to understand its true meaning. Stephen is the first of a very long series of martyrs who marked the long story of Jesus’ disciples and who, in the twentieth century, reached the highest number. The prince of evil always opposes Jesus’ disciples who do not give in to the primacy of love of themselves; he will always try to remove them from human history. That is what happened to Jesus: he could not be born in Bethlehem and had to leave the town; he went to Nazareth and was lead to the precipice to be killed, and finally in Jerusalem he was carried outside the walls and crucified.
In the liturgy that opened his pontificate, Benedict XVI said that it is the crucified that saves the world, not the crucifiers. And we can add that the many martyrs of the ages have saved and continue to save the world from destruction. Paul, who saw the martyrdom and approved of it to the point of continuing to persecute Christians, was perhaps the first have his heart touched by Stephen’s prayer.
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
