Reading of the Word of God
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Luke 6, 36-38
'Be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate.
Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven.
Give, and there will be gifts for you: a full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap; because the standard you use will be the standard used for you.'
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
The Gospel passage we have heard is taken from the Sermon on the Mount as reported in Luke’s Gospel. Jesus has just proclaimed the need to love one’s enemies, a passage which radically overturns the egocentric culture of this world of which we are all children. We heard it yesterday in the parallel passage in Matthew’s Gospel. Now Jesus exhorts the disciples which likewise upsetting words: "Be merciful, as your Father is merciful." It is not enough to simply be merciful, even if this would be great, given that our hearts generally are filled with grudges, envy, cursing, indifference and violent feelings.
Jesus places a measure on mercy, the same as that of the Father. Yes, Jesus’ disciples are called to be merciful as God is. It is an ideal as high as heaven, and yet it is what the Lord asks of us his disciples. It is not a moral exhortation that invites us to fulfil some work of mercy; it is this too. But it above all is a style of life which takes up what the Lord suggests. To be merciful like God means to have a heart like his, an attentiveness like his, a love like his. This is why he can also exhort to not judge. Our judgments on others are always ambiguous: in general, in fact, we are good with ourselves and malevolent towards others. It is what the Gospel says elsewhere: we are very skilled in seeing the straw in the other’s eye and in not seeing the beam in ours. The Gospel continues to exhort each of us to open our heart. Jesus says: "Give and it will be given to you; forgive and you will be forgiven." With these words the Lord gives us a great Gospel wisdom which is also human. Let us receive it in our heart and practise it in our life.
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
