Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Matthew 5, 38-42
'You have heard how it was said: Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.
But I say this to you: offer no resistance to the wicked. On the contrary, if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well;
if someone wishes to go to law with you to get your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.
And if anyone requires you to go one mile, go two miles with him.
Give to anyone who asks you, and if anyone wants to borrow, do not turn away.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
With this Monday after Pentecost the "Ordinary Time", which started in the week of January after Jesus’ Baptism and continued through Lent, starts again. The word "ordinary" is not to be intended as any time and even less as a time that is banal; rather it is the time in which no particular celebration of the Lord is remembered. In this time we are invited to live and witness the richness of Christ’s mystery that we have celebrated during the year. In sum, it is a time in which we should live according to the Spirit. This is why in the past it was called the "Time after Pentecost." The Spirit is love poured in our hearts. The Gospel passage from Matthew reminds us of it. The passage reports the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus deals with the theme of God’s "justice." Creating a pattern of opposites, Jesus takes the passage from the Old Testament that proposes the lex talionis ("an eye for an eye," etc.) and opposes it with love. The lex talionis was originally intended to control the practice of revenge to keep it from becoming unlimited and implacable. Its intention was to prevent excess. But Jesus goes even deeper; he wants to defeat the instinct for revenge at its roots and so break the inexorable spiral of violence. Evil retains all of its strength even when it is regulated the way the lex talionis intended. The only way to defeat it is to uproot it entirely. And the way to uproot evil proposed by Jesus - the only truly effective way - is the way of overabundant love. Evil cannot be defeated by more evil - even if well-regulated - but only by generous love. Jesus overturns the common way of thinking of his time - which is still common today - and asks his disciples not only to banish revenge from their behaviour, but even to turn the other cheek to the person who has already slapped them. Jesus is obviously not trying to create a new rule - the rule of "the other cheek", as some have said to mock his words - nor does Jesus favour a masochistic or submissive attitude towards evil. It is impossible to claim that Jesus, in his own life, did not strongly and deeply oppose evil. Jesus is always struggling against sin, injustice, sickness, and even that most extreme manifestation of evil, death. He came to bring to men and women a new way of living that is totally centred on love. It is love that renews the heart and makes life free. If someone loves, s/he offers her/his coat to the one who asks and walks twice as far with the person who asks for company; s/he does not turn her/his back on those who ask for help. With love we can defeat injustice at its birth and open the way to a dignified 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
