Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
2 Kings 5,20-27
Naaman had gone a small distance, when Gehazi, Elisha's servant, said to himself, 'My master has let this Aramaean Naaman off lightly, by not accepting what he offered. As Yahweh lives, I will run after him and get something out of him.'
So Gehazi set off in pursuit of Naaman. When Naaman saw him running after him, he jumped down from his chariot to meet him. 'Is all well?' he asked.
'All is well,' he said. 'My master has sent me to say, "This very moment two young men of the prophetic brotherhood have arrived from the highlands of Ephraim. Be kind enough to give them a talent of silver and two festal robes." '
'Please accept two talents,' Naaman replied, and pressed him, tying up the two talents of silver in two bags with the two festal robes and consigning them to two of his servants who carried them ahead of Gehazi.
When he reached Ophel, he took these from them and put them away in the house. He then dismissed the men, who went away.
He, for his part, went and presented himself to his master. Elisha said, 'Gehazi, where have you been?' 'Your servant has not been anywhere,' he replied.
But Elisha said to him, 'Was not my heart present there when someone left his chariot to meet you? Now you have taken the money, you can buy gardens with it, and olive groves, sheep and oxen, male and female slaves.
But Naaman's disease of the skin will cling to you and your descendants for ever.' And Gehazi left his presence white as snow from skin-disease.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
This passage from the second book of Kings concludes the episode of the healing of Naaman, the general who was healed from leprosy after bathing in the Jordan seven times according to the prophet’s instructions. The healing had taken place because Naaman had trusted in the prophet’s words. The rich gifts he had brought first to win over the king of Israel and second to repay Elisha had been useless, because the prophet had firmly refused them. This is how God showed his great mercy for Naaman. Once again God’s gratuitous love for us is revealed, and the prophet, for his part, was meant to be the visible sign of this divine gratuity. But Gehazi, the prophet’s servant, is presented in this episode as the antithesis of his master. When Naaman offered Elisha his gifts the prophet replied: "As the Lord lives, whom I serve, I will accept nothing!" (5:16). But Gehazi comes to the opposite decision in his heart and says: "As the Lord lives, I will run after him and get something out of him" (5:20). The two attitudes are totally opposed: Elisha is thinking only of the Lord and the healing of Naaman, while Gehazi is worried about getting something for himself. The sacred author is well aware of the distance between the two men, and he strongly contrasts their two attitudes. Elisha stays in his home, fully aware of the beauty of being with his friends in the presence of the Lord, while Gehazi is forced to leave the house and the prophet in order to grasp after money and wealth for himself. Gehazi took the two talents of silver and the clothing and hid them in his house. Only after did he return to Elisha, hiding what he had done. But the Lord, who sees in secret, reprimanded him through the words of the prophet. It is true that he had stopped at taking only two talents of silver and two sets of clothing, but he is reprimanded with a long list of thefts: "Is this a time to accept money and to accept clothing, olive orchards and vineyards, sheep and oxen, and male and female slaves" (another translation reads "flocks and herds")? This strange list means that it is enough to grasp just a few things for ourselves and we will have started down a path that has no end. If there is no gratuity - if we are not willing to give freely - everything else is possible because without gratuity we are not children of God, but children of the selfish and materialistic mentality of this world. Jesus will say it clearly: "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." And Gehazi contracted leprosy, that is, he became a slave of his greed.
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
