Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Glory to God in the highest
and peace on earth to the people he loves.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Matthew 4, 12-17.23-25
Hearing that John had been arrested he withdrew to Galilee,
and leaving Nazara he went and settled in Capernaum, beside the lake, on the borders of Zebulun and Naphtali.
This was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah:
Land of Zebulun! Land of Naphtali! Way of the sea beyond Jordan. Galilee of the nations!
The people that lived in darkness have seen a great light; on those who lived in a country of shadow dark as death a light has dawned.
From then onwards Jesus began his proclamation with the message, 'Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand.'
He went round the whole of Galilee teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing all kinds of disease and illness among the people.
His fame spread throughout Syria, and those who were suffering from diseases and painful complaints of one kind or another, the possessed, epileptics, the paralysed, were all brought to him, and he cured them.
Large crowds followed him, coming from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judaea and Transjordan.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The arrest of John the Baptist was a major defeat. It meant the disappearance of the one great friend, the one great prophet close to Jesus. The eulogy Jesus gives for the Baptist after his death reveals how much he loved this preacher. But for now the prophet, a teacher of justice and honesty, was in Herod’s prison. This prison was a sinister warning for anyone who might have wanted to travel the same path as John. Jesus understands this perfectly. With the Baptist in prison, Jesus is more alone; it is a profound solitude. "He withdrew to Galilee," in the peripheral regions of the North, a land inhabited by poor, and often mistreated people. But he did not follow the temptation to return to Nazareth, to the peace and quiet of his old habits. Rather, he chose Capernaum, the capital of the region situated north-west of the lake between Magdala and Bethany, and began to preach, taking up John’s witness almost word for word: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." In that region, the light that Isaiah had foreseen finally arrived. The light came there, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, among the poor and the weak. At the beginning of this new millennium, the disciples of Jesus need to go into the many Galilees of this world and once again announce the Gospel of the kingdom of love and peace, starting among the poor. Even though he lived in Capernaum, Jesus began to walk along the streets of Galilee with the little community of disciples. The first thing he does - his first work - is to preach. Every disciple and every Christian community first needs to communicate the Gospel everywhere. Each Christian generation needs to say with Jeremiah, "your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart" (Jer 15:16). With the limitless generosity of God’s love, Jesus sows the Word in the hearts of those he encounters so that it might grow and bear fruits of love, mercy and peace. Noting that he preaches the good news of the Kingdom in the synagogues, Matthew places Jesus within the Hebrew religious tradition. Jesus lives on the richness of prayer and reflection on the Holy Scriptures, but at the same time he preaches that the Kingdom of God is happening within him and he confirms the truth of his preaching by healing. The kingdom of God takes its first steps with the strength of preaching that defeats the power of evil. Many sick people - both in spirit and body - are healed. It is the festival of the kingdom that Jesus creates wherever he goes.
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
