Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Judith 7,1-18
The following day Holofernes issued orders to his whole army and to the whole host of auxiliaries who had joined him, to break camp and march on Bethulia, to occupy the mountain passes and so open the campaign against the Israelites.
The troops broke camp that same day. The actual fighting force numbered one hundred and twenty thousand infantry and twelve thousand cavalry, not to mention the baggage train with the vast number of men on foot concerned with that.
They penetrated the valley in the neighbourhood of Bethulia, near the spring, and deployed on a wide front from Dothan to Balbaim and, in depth, from Bethulia to Cyamon, which faces Esdraelon.
When the Israelites saw this horde, they were all appalled and said to each other, 'Now they will lick the whole country clean. Not even the loftiest peaks, the gorges or the hills will be able to stand the weight of them.'
Each man snatched up his arms; they lit beacons on their towers and spent the whole night on watch.
On the second day Holofernes deployed his entire cavalry in sight of the Israelites in Bethulia.
He reconnoitred the slopes leading up to the town, located the water-points, seized them and posted pickets over them and returned to the main body.
The chieftains of the sons of Esau, all the leaders of the Moabites and the generals of the coastal district then came to him and said,
'If our master will be pleased to listen to us, his forces will not sustain a single wound.
These Israelites do not rely so much on their spears as on the height of the mountains where they live. And admittedly it is not at all easy to scale these heights of theirs.
'This being the case, master, avoid engaging them in a pitched battle and then you will not lose a single man.
Stay in camp, keep all your troops there too, while your servants seize the spring which rises at the foot of the mountain,
since that is what provides the population of Bethulia with their water supply. Thirst will then force them to surrender their town. Meanwhile, we and our men will climb the nearest mountain tops and form advance posts there to prevent anyone from leaving the town.
Hunger will waste them, with their wives and children, and before the sword can reach them they will already be lying in the streets outside their houses.
And you will make them pay dearly for their defiance and their refusal to meet you peaceably.'
Their words pleased Holofernes as well as all his officers, and he decided to do as they suggested.
Accordingly, a troop of Moabites moved forward with a further five thousand Assyrians. They penetrated the valley and seized the Israelites' waterpoints and springs.
Meanwhile the Edomites and Ammonites went and took up positions in the highlands opposite Dothan, sending some of their men to the south-east opposite Egrebel near Chous on the Wadi Mochmur. The rest of the Assyrian army took up positions in the plain, covering every inch of the ground; their tents and equipment made an immense encampment, so vast were their numbers.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Holofernes is surprised at the resistance of this small people to the power of Nebuchadnezzar. What most irks him is the difference in behaviour between this people and others: they do not trust in a powerful king or in an army trained for war, but in an invisible God. For Holofernes, who thinks only of riches, pleasure, and material strength--of what is seen and can be shown off-- it is difficult to understand living and being willing to die for an invisible God. For Israel, on the other hand, there was certainty in God’s help. Just as God had wanted to be Israel’s God, so Israel had committed itself to be God’s people and had consecrated themselves to the worship of God. Their reason for living is to worship the Lord. Believers in fact live only for God. And this deep bond is the reason for their hope and their trust in the Lord’s intervention. Holofernes, certain of his might, moves against the small city of Bethulia, gate of access to the land of Israel. He orders the lining up of his imposing army (one hundred and seventy thousand infantry, twelve thousand horsemen, plus numerous adjuncts), as if to conquer a whole empire, whereas in fact he was taking by storm little more than a village. God may seem invisible and absent, and yet he is tremendously present. God does not appear and yet Holofernes confusedly feels that the fight for world dominion is about to unfold. No one fights without hope of victory. For Holofernes, the trust that the people of Judah have in their God is something mysterious. This trust, if on the one hand it sends him into a rage, on the other it gives rise in him to a certain apprehension. It is the fruit of Achior’s words, as if to emphasize the strength of the "prophetic" word which somehow enters even the most hardened heart. We see here that sincere encounter and dialogue is never useless. It is because of the apprehension caused by Achior’s words that Holofernes prepares this whole military apparatus. Even the allies and the subordinates fear and want to spare the army serious losses. They counsel Holofernes that it is better not to fight and it would be better to besiege the city and take it by famine. They believe that then the besieged would succumb, because there would be no help forthcoming to them. A siege would spare them from much lost and put Judah’s God to the test. In order to make the city lack in every provision of victuals and water, the army takes over the springs and waits for the city to be overcome by hunger, and open its gates itself. No longer does the army desire a frontal attack, but rather, it seems they almost fear this. They sense, perhaps murkily, a power that they dare not provoke and which has made itself present in the people of Bethulia at prayer. In this event, as we have repeatedly noted, this is not just a simple battle for conquest. For, at stake is a much deeper struggle, the struggle of the evil one against God. And the evil one does not combat God directly, but God’s people whom he has chosen and loves. In this story is an illustration of the whole story of the persecution, first of the people of God and successively against Jesus’ disciples in the course of the centuries. But the Scriptures attest that the Lord brings down the proud, "for not by might does one prevail" (1 Sam 2:9). The Lord in fact "heard their prayers and had regard for their distress" (Judith 4:13). Though they did not see how the Lord’s aid would come, they put their trust in Him. They knew that "he [would] not forsake [them] utterly" (Judith 7:30).
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
