Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Revelation 22,6-21
The angel said to me, 'All that you have written is sure and will come true: the Lord God who inspires the prophets has sent his angel to reveal to his servants what is soon to take place.
I am coming soon!' Blessed are those who keep the prophetic message of this book.
I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. When I had heard and seen them all, I knelt at the feet of the angel who had shown them to me, to worship him;
but he said, 'Do no such thing: I am your fellow-servant and the fellow-servant of your brothers the prophets and those who keep the message of this book. God alone you must worship.'
This, too, he said to me, 'Do not keep the prophecies in this book a secret, because the Time is close.
Meanwhile let the sinner continue sinning, and the unclean continue to be unclean; let the upright continue in his uprightness, and those who are holy continue to be holy.
Look, I am coming soon, and my reward is with me, to repay everyone as their deeds deserve.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
Blessed are those who will have washed their robes clean, so that they will have the right to feed on the tree of life and can come through the gates into the city.
Others must stay outside: dogs, fortune-tellers, and the sexually immoral, murderers, idolaters, and everyone of false speech and false life.'
I, Jesus, have sent my angel to attest these things to you for the sake of the churches. I am the sprig from the root of David and the bright star of the morning.
The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come!' Let everyone who listens answer, 'Come!' Then let all who are thirsty come: all who want it may have the water of life, and have it free.
This is my solemn attestation to all who hear the prophecies in this book: if anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him every plague mentioned in the book;
if anyone cuts anything out of the prophecies in this book, God will cut off his share of the tree of life and of the holy city, which are described in the book.
The one who attests these things says: I am indeed coming soon. Amen; come, Lord Jesus.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all. Amen.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
We have reached the last page of Revelation. As at the beginning, the text describes a sort of solemn, dialogued Liturgy. The angel who brought John into the heavenly Jerusalem pronounces the penultimate beatitude of Revelation, which is tied to the beatitude of the Mother of Jesus, who "treasured all these things in her heart" (Lk 2:51). The prophecy - every prophecy - needs to be kept, contemplated, and lived. This is what we should do with every Word of God, including this book. The angel urges John not to seal it up. The words of Revelation, in fact, do not simply describe the future: they speak of the life of the Christian community immersed in the complexity and the drama of history. All of the different Christian generations stand in the fascinating and terrible field of history where Good and Evil confront each other. Our Christian generation also has to examine itself in light of these words; above all, we must face the beginning of this new millennium with the heavenly Jerusalem before our eyes, sure of Lord’s victory over the Prince of Evil and his armies. The new Jerusalem is still the dream of believers. An anonymous monk of the twelfth century wrote: "The city of Jerusalem is placed in the highest of heavens. Its builder is God. God is its one foundation, just as the founder is one, God, the Most High, who founded it. The life of all its inhabitants is one; one is the light they see, one is the peace of their rest; one is the bread that satisfies them; one is the fountain from which they draw water, endlessly blessed. All of this is God, who is all in all things...The city itself exists, sees and loves....This city does not need the light of the sun, because God the All Powerful illuminates it. His lamp is the stainless Lamb of God, sent into the world by the Father as the victim of salvation....He brought the prisoners out of the waterless lake of hell, triumphing before them while he led them into his kingdom. He is most beautiful to look at, desirable to the eyes...He is a peaceful king and his face is desired by the entire earth. He is forgiving towards sinners, the friend of the poor, the counsellor of the afflicted, the guardian of the little ones, the teacher of the simple, the guide of pilgrims, the redeemer of the dead, the courage of combatants, the generous and rewarded king of the conquerors." The certain imminence of the Holy City, the heavenly Jerusalem, makes us also cry: "Come, Lord Jesus!" Yes, come, because without you, the world is prey to the Evil One; come, because without you we can do nothing. And come, because we know you are listening to us. Before the prayer even leaves our lips, Revelation has already given us your answer: "Surely I am coming soon!"
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
