Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Matthew 22,34-40
But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees they got together
and, to put him to the test, one of them put a further question,
'Master, which is the greatest commandment of the Law?'
Jesus said to him, 'You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and the first commandment.
The second resembles it: You must love your neighbour as yourself.
On these two commandments hang the whole Law, and the Prophets too.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Love for God and for neighbour is the lynchpin on which "hang all the law and the prophets." This is what Jesus answered to the Pharisees who asked him about which was the greatest commandment of the law. The Jewish religious thinking of that time had codified 613 precepts, of which 365 were negative and 248 were positive. It was a mass of instructions, even if they did not all have the same value. It was clear, however, what the first was: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might" (Deut 6:4-5). The command to love one’s neighbour was also well known. The originality of the Gospel is not that it recalls these two commandments, but that connects them so tightly it unites them. The commandment about love of neighbour is assimilated with the first and greatest commandment about complete and total love of God, because they are both a part of the same unifying and fundamental principle. The road that leads to God necessarily crosses the one that leads to men and women, and, obviously and especially, this road leads to those men and women who have greater need of being defended because they are weaker. By defending them, we defend God. John the Evangelist goes as far as saying: "We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another" (1 Jn 3:14). That is not all. God does not seem to be competing with our love for men and women; in a certain sense, God does not insist on reciprocity in love (even though it is obviously needed). Jesus in fact does not ask: "Love me as I have loved you," but "Just as I have loved you, you also should love should love one another" (John 13:34). This is what puts him above David, because it places him on God’s own level. This title, which echoes several times in the Gospels, helps us understand the divine heart of Jesus.
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
