EVERYDAY PRAYER

Liturgy of the Sunday
Word of god every day

Liturgy of the Sunday

Third Sunday of Lent Read more

Libretto DEL GIORNO
Liturgy of the Sunday

Homily

The Gospel presents Jesus as being tired. Not so much because of the walk; his fatigue is the result of continuously running after us to get us out of the trouble we get into, to free us from the sins into which we fall. He is also hungry, but not for bread. The disciples, after having brought food, tell him: "Rabbi, eat something." But he responds: "I have food to eat that you do not know about. ... My food is to do the will of him who sent me." The disciples, as usual, do not understand. Jesus’ hunger is for fulfilling the Father’s work. Jesus is thirsty, but not so much for water. When he asks that woman: "Give me a drink," Jesus is thirsty to save her; he is thirsty for her affection, as he is for ours. Generally we flee from the request for love and company this strong and radical, because without a doubt the Lord’s love is demanding, and we choose our petty loves and little revenges. We resist him in the same way the Samaritan woman does: she asks: "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" In reality, Jesus is already overcoming a barrier with this request. He is speaking to a woman, moreover a Samaritan. A rabbinic proverb taught: "Whoever eats Samaritan bread is like one who eats dog meat."
The woman is shaken by Jesus’ request, but she does not understand the energy of love that is hidden behind his words: "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." God loved that woman while she was yet far off; but she had not noticed. Her life, marked by disillusion and betrayals, perhaps no longer gives her any hope. It’s the story of the five husbands. She no longer believes in others and does not even have much faith in herself. How can she then trust a foreigner? How can she understand that it is God who is speaking in that tired and thirsty Jew who does not even have any equipment to draw water? "Where do you get that living water?" she asks, resigned and sceptical. For her, accustomed to the hardships of life, words are no longer enough, they do not cause change, do not give life. That woman is much like us. Her life is full of betrayals and problems. She has become a hard woman, constrained to defend herself and reply in an aggressive manner ("How is it that you ask a drink of me?"). She is aggressive in order not to admit her disillusionments and failures. She is like that with everyone; even with that stranger who speaks to her simply and directly. She is a poor thing, with a complicated life, who must walk a long way in order to draw water. She is a woman strong by experience, who thinks she already knows what life is about. Her judgments are quick.
What can that man without means do, weak and without a way to draw water? She no longer believes in anything, just in her jar, in her fatigue, in what she sees and touches with her hands. The Gospel is a dream outside of reality! For her, sceptical, materialistic, and accustomed to the hardness of life, words no longer count. But she is also shrewd. When Jesus speaks of different water, through which there will no longer be thirst, nor the need to walk to the well, she immediately seeks what’s convenient. She wants to take what she can from the Gospel without having to change in any way. She wishes to take hold of some convenience but remain what she has always been. The encounter with Jesus is personal. It touches the heart. Jesus helps her to be herself. "I have no husband," she says. She does not tell her whole story. Jesus does not attack her, does not humiliate her with an embarrassing description of her story of so many loves sought and betrayed. He explains to her, with sensitivity, her whole life. Jesus is the truth. It is precisely this which has an impact on the woman: to be understood, known just as she is, and to be loved! It is not a law or a judgment which changes hearts, but the prolonged and insistent encounter with that man who speaks with freedom and love. Let us be told by him all that we have done! We will become a fountain in the dryness of life. We will speak to so many, amazed just as the Samaritan woman is, of someone who has spoken to us with love!
The Church, Pope John used to say, is like the fountain in a village: it’s for everyone, and everyone can draw near to draw the water of love and consolation. May it be so also for our hearts, possessive and sinful as they are, but known, loved, and forgiven by the Lord, a thirsty man who walks and asks for love. May the Lord teach us to be a fountain of love, serving those who thirst.

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