EVERYDAY PRAYER

Sunday Vigil
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Sunday Vigil


Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Mark 4, 35-41

With the coming of evening that same day, he said to them, 'Let us cross over to the other side.'

And leaving the crowd behind they took him, just as he was, in the boat; and there were other boats with him.

Then it began to blow a great gale and the waves were breaking into the boat so that it was almost swamped.

But he was in the stern, his head on the cushion, asleep.

They woke him and said to him, 'Master, do you not care? We are lost!' And he woke up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Quiet now! Be calm!' And the wind dropped, and there followed a great calm.

Then he said to them, 'Why are you so frightened? Have you still no faith?'

They were overcome with awe and said to one another, 'Who can this be? Even the wind and the sea obey him.'

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The Gospel of Mark continues to show us Jesus as he walks along the paths of humanity. Within him there is an urgency to communicate the Gospel to all. This is why he does not stop in places that might be more safe and comfortable. Jesus feels the urgency to go beyond, to communicate the Gospel where there is need. Turning to his disciples, he tells them: "Let us go across to the other side." He wants to open his disciples’ hearts too, so that they may be freed from laziness. We all know the temptation to close ourselves in our habitual horizons, including the religious ones. Today it happens even more frequently. Truly the world is globalised, but often it is even "tribalised." All are lead into this temptation. It is easier and easier to raise fences between each other, between citizens and immigrants, between the young and the old, and so on. Jesus widens our hearts and minds from the very beginning. The disciples obey Jesus’ command and go with the boat out into the deep, taking their Teacher with them. During their crossing, as often happens on that lake, a storm blows up. It is easy to read the evangelist’s words as a reference to the many storms of life, the true storms that pertain to the many tragedies of existence, not the minor psychological worries that we selfishly experience as storms. The evangelist invites us not to exaggerate our storms but rather, to fix our attention on those that are real. And so in the cries of the apostles we hear the echoes of the cries of the people crushed by war and injustice or of the many men and women whose existences are swept away by the raging waves of evil. Theirs is a cry that Christian communities need to welcome and make their own, transforming it into a prayer to the Lord, a request for him to rebuke the wind like he did that evening and say to the sea: "Peace! Be still!" We pray that the men and women crushed by evil will be able to reach the other shore, the shore of peace. This is a great mission that has been entrusted to the Church: to pray for the world so that the Kingdom of God may come soon for all.

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR

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!

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR