EVERYDAY PRAYER

Liturgy of the Sunday
Word of god every day

Liturgy of the Sunday

First Sunday of Lent Read more

Libretto DEL GIORNO
Liturgy of the Sunday

Homily

We began Lent on Wednesday. These are forty days which prepare us for Easter. As Jesus confronted evil in the desert, thus this season invites us to fight against all division and enmity in our hearts and in this world. To change means to learn to love from the master of love. Lent is a time of forgiveness and of joy because we find our hearts again, listening to a father who loves and forgives us. Why change? Because this is what the Lord asks. The Lord wants our good. Jesus wants joy for his own -- a beautiful life, full of brothers and sisters, not a boring life, hardened or sad, which is depleted and which obeys the terrible law of self-love. We should ask ourselves whether we are poor in love, cold, fearful, aggressive, unfaithful, inconstant, full of resentments, or controlled by instinctive pride. And we should question whether our hearts too easily fill up with fear and enmity, distrust and hostility. Living like that, we unfailingly fall into the sadness of a lonely life.
Man, who was dust, became a living being when the Lord God -- as the Scripture tells us -- blew into his nostrils the breath of life; and it was the same Lord who placed the man in the garden he had planted. This was the will of the Lord for human life: that everyone lives in a blooming garden. But mankind did not want to listen to the Word of God, preferring the deceitful and enticing voice of the serpent. Mankind lost that garden and dwelt in the desert, as the book of Genesis tells us. The garden of life is transformed into a desert when mankind prefers to listen to voices other than God’s. The world, our city, and our hearts are often similar to the desert because we prefer the suggestions of the serpent to the Word of God. And we thus find ourselves stripped of affection, stripped of friendship and dignity, stripped of the sense of life. And, as Adam and Eve did, we accuse others in order to save ourselves. When we don’t listen to the Lord, even the most intimate friends become enemies. And life becomes a desert dominated by the ancient tempter, who, undisturbed, continues to push us to listen to ourselves more so than to the Lord, to accuse one another rather than love one another. In short, in the desert of this world, seeking our own interests becomes the supreme law.
Jesus has come to this desert so as not to abandon us, to show us how far his love can reach. Here, he, like us, submits to temptations. The Gospel lists three, the first one being bread. It arrives at a favourable moment, when Jesus, after forty days of fasting, is exhausted from hunger. We see here the temptation to satisfy oneself, to think only about one’s own well-being. Jesus, weakened by fasting, has more than plausible reasons to give in to the insinuations of the tempter. But he responds with the only true strength humans have, the Word of God: "One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God" (Mt 4:4). The devil takes Jesus atop the pinnacle of the temple and challenges him: "Throw yourself down! The angels of God will certainly protect you." It’s the temptation of the protagonist who sees nothing but himself, and pretends that everything is centred on himself, that everyone, even the angels, revolves around him. And finally there is the temptation of power: "Everything can be yours," the devil says to Jesus while showing him the whole expanse of the earth from a mountain top. But Jesus proclaims his freedom from power, stating that one should bow before God alone: "For it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him." How many times have we thought we could use certain things, but then ended up as slaves! In the desert, dominated by the deceitful words of the ancient tempter, Jesus reaffirms each time, "It is written. ..." It is with the Gospel, continuously presented anew, that Jesus defeats the temptations and keeps the devil away: "Away with you, Satan!" And that desert is transformed into a garden of life. Jesus is no longer alone and abandoned to hunger and dryness. The angels arrive, take their places beside him, and serve him.

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