Feast of the Black Christ of Esquipulas in Guatemala, venerated throughout all of Central America. Read more
Feast of the Black Christ of Esquipulas in Guatemala, venerated throughout all of Central America.
Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Mark 2, 13-17
He went out again to the shore of the lake; and all the people came to him, and he taught them.
As he was walking along he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, 'Follow me.' And he got up and followed him.
When Jesus was at dinner in his house, a number of tax collectors and sinners were also sitting at table with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many of them among his followers.
When the scribes of the Pharisee party saw him eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, 'Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?'
When Jesus heard this he said to them, 'It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. I came to call not the upright, but sinners.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Day after day, the Gospel of Mark joins us with Jesus and the small community he had gathered while it started the first steps of the Gospel preaching. Jesus walks along the shores of the Sea of Galilee and meets Levi, a tax collector, sitting at the tax booth. As soon as he sees him, he calls him. He, too, leaves everything and begins to follow Jesus. Jesus’ small community was also growing in number. However, the teacher did not seem to care about the background or conditions of those he calls to follow him. Indeed, there are no preconditions to be part of the community of the disciples. It does not matter how we are, or what is our story or character. Levi is even regarded as a public sinner because he holds the office of tax-collector that contributed to enrich the Romans, the oppressors. In order to belong to the community of disciples, what matters is listening to the word of the Lord and putting it into practice, just as Levi had done. For him, as for the first four disciples, it was sufficient to just hear Jesus say: "Follow me!" Levi gets up from his condition, leaves his booth, and begins to follow Jesus. The evangelist tells us then of a luncheon organized in honour of Jesus and the disciples, to which Levi invited his friends, who were also tax-collectors and sinners. According to the Pharisees, sharing the table meant also sharing the impurity. This caused the serious accusation against Jesus. And yet, the harshness and wickedness of a legalistic mentality is immediately clear. Jesus’ attitude is totally different and he answers to their accusations: "I have come to call not the righteous but sinners." Jesus did not think that the Pharisee were righteous; indeed, they mistakenly thought that they were just. Certainly, however, Levi and the other dinner guests were weak and poor; they were sinners, as each of us is. Jesus came for the weak and the sinner. He came also for the Pharisees. And yet the condition for salvation, for them as well for us, lies in not feeling at peace, but rather in need of the Lord’s help.
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
