Reading of the Word of God
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
You are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a people acquired by God
to proclaim his marvellous works.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Matthew 20, 17-28
Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, and on the road he took the Twelve aside by themselves and said to them,
'Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man is about to be handed over to the chief priests and scribes. They will condemn him to death
and will hand him over to the gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified; and on the third day he will be raised up again.'
Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came with her sons to make a request of him, and bowed low;
and he said to her, 'What is it you want?' She said to him, 'Promise that these two sons of mine may sit one at your right hand and the other at your left in your kingdom.'
Jesus answered, 'You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?' They replied, 'We can.'
He said to them, 'Very well; you shall drink my cup, but as for seats at my right hand and my left, these are not mine to grant; they belong to those to whom they have been allotted by my Father.'
When the other ten heard this they were indignant with the two brothers.
But Jesus called them to him and said, 'You know that among the gentiles the rulers lord it over them, and great men make their authority felt.
Among you this is not to happen. No; anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant,
and anyone who wants to be first among you must be your slave,
just as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.'
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Jesus is drawing near to Jerusalem, and for the third time he confides his disciples what is waiting for him in a very detailed way. Jesus foretells that the priests will judge him and consign him to the Gentiles (the Romans) who will mock and flog him and will put him to death on the cross. But then - he adds one more time - "on the third day he will be raised." As often happens to us, the disciples do not listen, or, if they do, they think that he is exaggerating as usual. How often we think the words of the Gospel are exaggerated; that they are beautiful to hear but difficult to live! The evangelist tells us that when faced with the tragedy that Jesus is living, the disciples do not seem to know how to do anything other than to reveal their ambitions and claim privileges for themselves, showing where their true concern lies. Jesus is thinking about what will happen to him in Jerusalem, and the disciples are thinking about the recognition they will receive. Jesus is going towards the cross, and they are thinking about "thrones of glory." In fact, they all want the same thing that the mother of the sons of Zebedee requests. But Jesus tells them: "You do not know what you are asking," and with great patience he teaches them by showing them the path they should follow. He seems to accept the disciples’ ambition, but he turns it completely on its head: "Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant." It is a path that runs contrary to the paths of the world and contrary to the path we instinctively follow. With his own life, Jesus shows his disciples how he wants them to be "different." Jesus, in fact, came to serve and not to be served. That is what he asks of all of his disciples, including us, during this time in which we are following Jesus towards Easter.
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
