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 1,26-38
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. He went in and said to her, 'Rejoice, you who enjoy God's favour! The Lord is with you.' She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean, but the angel said to her, 'Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God's favour. Look! You are to conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David; he will rule over the House of Jacob for ever and his reign will have no end.' Mary said to the angel, 'But how can this come about, since I have no knowledge of man?' The angel answered, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the child will be holy and will be called Son of God. And I tell you this too: your cousin Elizabeth also, in her old age, has conceived a son, and she whom people called barren is now in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible to God.' Mary said, 'You see before you the Lord's servant, let it happen to me as you have said.' And the angel left her.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Even if we have heard this page of the Gospel so many times, it should never be taken for granted. The Word of God is always new because it contains in itself the boundless horizon of God’s love which we will never exhaust with our narrow mind and constricted heart. To listen to this Gospel page on Christmas Eve is a further grace to help us gather an extra richness from this great mystery. In these days of Advent -as we have been able to seewe have been taken by the hand and introduced into the extraordinary richness of the mystery of Christ’s birth. It is proper to the Word of God to again speak to believer’s hearts; and each time it resounds in a new way, precisely because it prods us to renew our heart, to change it, to make it be part of new perspectives. And this always creates some upset. The words of the angel troubled Mary too. The Word of God, in fact, always creates motion inside. When the angel speaks, he does not throw words to the wind, he wants to touch the heart and change it. And this always provokes a "disturbance." It happens to Zechariah, it happened to Mary, and it continues to happen to each one of us if we listen to the Gospel. But, unlike Zechariah, Mary was not just perplexed; she does not interrupt the dialog with the angel. That girl continued to listen to the angel; she did not interrupt the dialogue with him, as compared to what often happens to us who draw back when love becomes too demanding and wants to involve us in a higher plan. We prefer our little and restricted horizons to the greater dream that the Lord proposes to us. And we exchange our greedy laziness with that false humility of those who do not believe he is fit for the call of God.
Mary knew well that she was a poor girl from a forsaken village on the periphery of the Roman Empire. And, even though she was aware of her weakness, nevertheless, she gave her "yes" to the angel’s invitation. From that day the history of the world changed. That small "yes" has changed human history. More than two thousand years have passed from that "yes" to the angel. On that day "the Word became flesh." And Mary has become the first of the believers, the first who has received in her heart the Word of God, to the point that it became flesh of her flesh. She is before us and continues to indicate to us the way of faith which is, precisely, that of listening to the Word of God. Our "yes" of each day continues to change our life and that of this world. Yes, the world’s history changes every time we say "yes" to the Lord who calls us. Let us be accompanied by Mary’s example and with her let us say "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word."
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
