Memory of St. Gregory the Great (540-604), pope and doctor of the Church.
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Memory of St. Gregory the Great (540-604), pope and doctor of the Church.
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
Luke 5,33-39
They then said to him, 'John's disciples are always fasting and saying prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees, too, but yours go on eating and drinking.'
Jesus replied, 'Surely you cannot make the bridegroom's attendants fast while the bridegroom is still with them?
But the time will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them; then, in those days, they will fast.'
He also told them a parable, 'No one tears a piece from a new cloak to put it on an old cloak; otherwise, not only will the new one be torn, but the piece taken from the new will not match the old.
'And nobody puts new wine in old wineskins; otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins and run to waste, and the skins will be ruined.
No; new wine must be put in fresh skins.
And nobody who has been drinking old wine wants new. "The old is good," he says.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
It is an experience which we all know, that of seeking rules and clear prescriptions to follow, even severe ones, in order to relieve us from the toil and responsibility of understanding what the Lord wants of us. This is why the Pharisees praise the disciples of the Baptist, because they fast and recite prayers, while they condemn Jesus’ disciples because they celebrate, even outside of the prescribed times. Jesus responds that the disciples celebrate because they have found the saviour of their life; a feast he compares to a wedding celebration, as it is so beautiful. Obviously, Jesus’ disciples should fast too. They shall certainly fast when the bridegroom is taken away - and these are the difficult moments of every persecution - but they are called immediately to fast from their own selfishness, from their own closed-in being, from their own self-sufficiency, from their own provincialism, because only thus can they receive the gift of being children of God to the point that they can call him "Father." They, in fact, make up part of that new family, constituted by Jesus himself, not through bonds of the flesh and kinship, but through spiritual bonds that break down every limitation and every barrier and enlarge the heart. The disciples thus put on an inward dress all new, precisely that of the children of God, and their heart is like those new wineskins filled to the brim with the new wine that is the Lord’s love.
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
