Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.
The child you shall bear will be holy.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Revelation 9,13-21
The sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a single voice issuing from the four horns of the golden altar in God's presence.
It spoke to the sixth angel with the trumpet, and said, 'Release the four angels that are chained up at the great river Euphrates.'
These four angels had been ready for this hour of this day of this month of this year, and ready to destroy a third of the human race.
I learnt how many there were in their army: twice ten thousand times ten thousand mounted men.
In my vision I saw the horses, and the riders with their breastplates of flame colour, hyacinth-blue and sulphur-yellow; the horses had lions' heads, and fire, smoke and sulphur were coming from their mouths.
It was by these three plagues, the fire, the smoke and the sulphur coming from their mouths, that the one third of the human race was killed.
All the horses' power was in their mouths and their tails: their tails were like snakes, and had heads which inflicted wounds.
But the rest of the human race, who escaped death by these plagues, refused either to abandon their own handiwork or to stop worshipping devils, the idols made of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood that can neither see nor hear nor move.
Nor did they give up their murdering, or witchcraft, or fornication or stealing.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The sixth trumpet reveals the spread of the punishment afflicting the earth. Other disasters had afflicted the earth, but people never stopped worshiping idols or doing evil deeds. The sixth angel unleashes an exterminating army that strikes hard. The four angels bound at the Euphrates represent the danger that always came to Israel from that river; it is from there that the invading armies set out. It is a place that meant ruin (according to later tradition it will also become the homeland of the Antichrist). During the time when the book of Revelation was written, the Euphrates marked the border between the Roman Empire and the Parthians: a place of fear and tension. In the apocryphal book of Enoch, one can read that "on that day the angels returned and rushed towards the East to the Parthians and the Medes...they stirred up the kings until a spirit of uneasiness took hold [of] them. And they went out and trampled the land of the chosen ones under their feet." The exterminating army that marches out from the Euphrates seems to symbolize the innumerable armies (both the organized and efficient armies of the rich world and the tumultuary armies of the poor world) that still provoke violence and shed innocent blood in many parts of the world today. How many conflicts still rage on our planet! It is striking that every time the apostle has to personify the demonic castigation he describes it as an army at war. War brings no advantage to any nation. In war, everyone loses, even those who believe they have won. In reality, seeds of hatred and revenge continue to be sown. Despite the disasters caused by war, men and women continue to bend to the logic of evil: this is what it means for idolatry, murder, sorcery, fornication, and theft to persist (v. 20-21). The affirmation of one’s own "ego" in every dimension of life promotes a climate favourable to war. Peoples, groups, and nations who are concerned with defending their own interests once again choose conflict, forgetful of the disasters that every war brings. More so than in the past, the believers of today have the responsibility of making love and peace grow and cutting out the roots of the evil that develops in people’s hearts.
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
