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
Judith 8,28-36
Uzziah replied, 'Everything you have just said comes from an honest heart and no one will contradict a word of it.
Not that today is the first time your wisdom has been displayed; from your earliest years all the people have known how shrewd you are and of how sound a heart.
But, parched with thirst, the people forced us to act as we had promised them and to bind ourselves by an inviolable oath.
You are a devout woman; pray to the Lord, then, to send us a downpour to fill our storage-wells, so that our faintness may pass.'
Judith replied, 'Listen to me, I intend to do something, the memory of which will be handed down to the children of our race from age to age.
Tonight you must be at the gate of the town. I shall make my way out with my attendant. Before the time fixed by you for surrendering the town to our enemies, the Lord will make use of me to rescue Israel.
You must not ask what I intend to do; I shall not tell you until I have done it.'
Uzziah and the chief men said, 'Go in peace. May the Lord show you a way to take revenge on our enemies.'
And leaving the upper room they went back to their posts.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
With her words to the chiefs Judith has not only reproached them for having put God to the test: she has won them over to a religious vision of the situation they are living. The two elders can but say: "Now since you are a God-fearing woman, pray for us, so that the Lord may send us rain to fill our cisterns" (8:31). Seized by fear and sorrow for what is happening they no longer hope for salvation and cannot even pray. In effect, prayer and hope go together. Judith, in the days of the siege has already prayed for salvation and in such a way as to make her available in any way. She has intuited that there is a way out, but not through power. Weakness is the way chosen in order to confound the strong and powerful of this world. Thus it was with David who had defeated Goliath. And, in the New Testament, the apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians: "Consider your own call, brothers and sisters:* not many of you were wise by human standards,* not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one* might boast in the presence of God. 30He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption ... Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done" (1 Cor 1:26-28; 3:10-13). Judith is aware of the power which comes from faith in God, and tells the elders: "Within the days after which you have promised to surrender the town to our enemies, the Lord will deliver Israel by my hand" (8:33). And she asks them to trust. Trust in God goes hand in hand with trust in his representatives: "Only, do not try to find out what I am doing; for I will not tell you until I have finished what I am about to do" (8:34). The absolute novelty of the event is meant to signify how unforeseeable God’s action is, and how far it is from normal human logic. How could one even think of defeating such an immense army? However, against what appears to men to be an invincible army, a woman ventures out, and moreover, she ventures out by herself. She is wise because she is docile to God and she is luminous with a superhuman beauty for her faith in the Lord is reflected in her.
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
