Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Matthew 6, 24-34
'No one can be the slave of two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or be attached to the first and despise the second. You cannot be the slave both of God and of money.
'That is why I am telling you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat, nor about your body and what you are to wear. Surely life is more than food, and the body more than clothing!
Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they are?
Can any of you, however much you worry, add one single cubit to your span of life?
And why worry about clothing? Think of the flowers growing in the fields; they never have to work or spin;
yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his royal robes was clothed like one of these.
Now if that is how God clothes the wild flowers growing in the field which are there today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will he not much more look after you, you who have so little faith?
So do not worry; do not say, "What are we to eat? What are we to drink? What are we to wear?"
It is the gentiles who set their hearts on all these things. Your heavenly Father knows you need them all.
Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on God's saving justice, and all these other things will be given you as well.
So do not worry about tomorrow: tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
No one can serve two masters, that is to say, no one can serve both the Gospel and the things of this world. The heart cannot be divided. The Lord requires of his disciples an exclusive love, just as exclusive as his love for us. Our God is a jealous God and full of love. To be free of the slavery to material things means to entrust ourselves totally to Him and to put ourselves in His hands. It seems as though even Christians cannot keep from conforming to the dictatorship of materialism. Often the "worry [about] what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear" insinuates itself into our lives and takes control of us. Often the difficulties of work - of being paid a decent, respectable wage - can change into anxiety for ourselves and for those near to us. The Lord is not inviting us to laziness. "Anyone unwilling to work should not eat," the apostle Paul writes. But we should remain free from all excessive anxiety, fully trusting that the Lord God knows our lives and wants good things for us. And "good" here absolutely does not correspond to the quantity of our possessions. The Lord is a true Father who takes care of his children and provides for their needs. The Gospels seems to be telling us: "You were born for the Lord. Your life is very important to him, more important even than it is to you. You are made for him and for your brothers and sisters." Yet we pay very little attention to this, and we do not worry about this fundamental truth, which is in fact the meaning of life. So, if many people remain unfed and unclothed, it is because others are not seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness, but only their own advantage. The disciples’ true concern, Jesus says, must be the kingdom, that is to say, the communication of the Gospel, the building up of the community, and the service to the poor. The disciple who seeks after this heavenly "righteousness," that is the righteousness of the Kingdom, is upheld and protected by the Lord for the whole of her 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
