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 6, 19-23
'Do not store up treasures for yourselves on earth, where moth and woodworm destroy them and thieves can break in and steal.
But store up treasures for yourselves in heaven, where neither moth nor woodworm destroys them and thieves cannot break in and steal.
For wherever your treasure is, there will your heart be too.
'The lamp of the body is the eye. It follows that if your eye is clear, your whole body will be filled with light.
But if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be darkness. If then, the light inside you is darkened, what darkness that will be!
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Jesus urges his listeners of yesterday and today not to store up "treasures on earth." This is a very wise teaching, especially in a rich and opulent society like ours. We need to free ourselves from the slavery of possessions and consumption, which reduce our lives to consider the material’ as the only important thing. A little later, Jesus will warn his disciples about the very dangerous equivoque of those who think to be able to "serve two masters." We know well Jesus’ severity about the power that things and money have on us. Indeed, a true dictatorship of materialism is growing more and more in our world. It is like an invisible hand that forces us to submit to the law of consumption and the accumulation of materials things. The Gospel's teaching is very clear on this matter: whoever accumulates a lot falls prey to a great love for things and is moved by a passion that takes control of the heart. This is why Jesus affirms: "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Our true treasure, Jesus says, can be found by following the direction of our heart. Therefore, it is necessary to cultivate the heart and make it grow according to the Gospel. The words of the Gospel should shape how we act and how we feel, forging a way of life far from the longing for possessions and accumulation, which Jesus compares to the rusting of metal that consumes the heart. Instead, storing up treasures in heaven means loving the Word and putting it into practice. Doing this carries us to heaven. The prophet writes: "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth...so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth" (Is 55:10, 11). Heaven, therefore, is not a distant goal: heaven is a life with the Lord, with our brothers and sisters, and with the poor. Anyone who spends his or her life according to the Gospel stores up treasures that endure in heaven; not only can they never be stolen from the believer, but they will bear abundant fruits of love and goodness.
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
