Memory of Mary, Mother of Jesus, sorrowful at the foot of the cross and of al those who live the compassion with those who are crucified, alone and condemned.
Read more
Memory of Mary, Mother of Jesus, sorrowful at the foot of the cross and of al those who live the compassion with those who are crucified, alone and condemned.
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
Luke 7,31-35
'What comparison, then, can I find for the people of this generation? What are they like?
They are like children shouting to one another while they sit in the market place: We played the pipes for you, and you wouldn't dance; we sang dirges, and you wouldn't cry.
'For John the Baptist has come, not eating bread, not drinking wine, and you say, "He is possessed."
The Son of man has come, eating and drinking, and you say, "Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners."
Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The gospel words express a harsh judgment on the generation who had understood neither the Baptist nor the Son of man. Further on still Jesus will accuse: "You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you?" (Luke 9:41) Even Peter, leaving the Cenacle on Pentecost Day, tells those who heard him: "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation" (Acts 2:40). This is not so much assuming a pessimistic posture on Jesus’ or Peter’s part as it is the recognition of the blindness of every generation has in recognizing the "signs of the times," in other words, the signs of God and His salvation written in human history. In our generation at the beginning of this millennium it is easy, even because of a crisis of morals and ideals, to close in on oneself and in one’s own small horizons to the point of being deaf to the words of the Gospel, deaf to the exhortations, to hope. We are essentially so taken up with ourselves and our fears that we are not able to see nothing but that which concerns us. Nothing, therefore, seems right to us. Jesus, distressed, tells his hearers that John came to do penance and was accused of having a demon, while he came eating and drinking and was accused of being a glutton. In short, we like neither this nor that, not one thing or the other. And we assume attitudes of irritation or of cry-babies, but only because we want to defend ourselves at all costs.
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
