EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Mother of the Lord
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Mother of the Lord


Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.
The child you shall bear will be holy.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Luke 1, 26-38

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth,

to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.

He went in and said to her, 'Rejoice, you who enjoy God's favour! The Lord is with you.'

She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean,

but the angel said to her, 'Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God's favour.

Look! You are to conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus.

He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David;

he will rule over the House of Jacob for ever and his reign will have no end.'

Mary said to the angel, 'But how can this come about, since I have no knowledge of man?'

The angel answered, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the child will be holy and will be called Son of God.

And I tell you this too: your cousin Elizabeth also, in her old age, has conceived a son, and she whom people called barren is now in her sixth month,

for nothing is impossible to God.'

Mary said, 'You see before you the Lord's servant, let it happen to me as you have said.' And the angel left her.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The liturgical calendar commemorates the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen. The feast is very recent. Pius XII introduced it in 1995 and collocated it at the end of August, as if to complete the mystery of the Assumption, a dogma that opens our eyes on the future of humanity and on our future of believers. Mary is the first of the believers who enters heaven. After her, we too will be embraced by the Lord in the holy Jerusalem. In this regard the Vatican Council writes: "The immaculate Virgin [...], when she had finished her earthly course, was assumed to heavenly glory, body and soul, and was exalted by the Lord as Queen of the universe, so that she would be fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of rulers, the Conqueror of sin and death." It is truly a great mystery, not only because it reveals to us the future towards which we are all journeying, but also because it gives us a Mother who continues to be before our eyes as a sign of God’s limitless mercy. The Gospel of the visitation to Elizabeth shows the readiness with which Mary responded to the Lord by practising that mercy which she had been the first to receive. Luke writes that Mary, after having learned from the angel that Elizabeth was pregnant, immediately ran to her in order to help her in that delicate moment. We could say that this first gesture shows what it means Christian "royalty," that is serving those who are in need. To be "king" for Christians means to spend one’s life for others. This is what Mary did as soon as she received the annunciation from the angel that she would be the mother of the Messiah. Besides Jesus affirms and lives such royalty in first person. This is the meaning of his well known words: "The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve" (Mt 20:28). At the end of the last supper, after washing his disciples’ feet, he said to them: "For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you" (Jn 13:15). Mary was the first who lived out the royalty of love. The evangelist writes that she went "with haste," in order to underline the urgency of love. The Gospel always makes us hasten, impels to leave our usual habits, our own preoccupations and thoughts. The Gospel makes us get up from ourselves and pushes us to be beside the one who is suffering or who has need, as did the elderly Elizabeth who was facing a difficult maternity. At the moment she sees young Mary come to her house, she rejoices profoundly, down to her core. It is the joy of the weak and the poor when they see they are visited by the men and women who are "servants" of the Lord, by those who "have believed that the Lord’s words would be fulfilled." The Word of God created a new covenant in the world, an unheard of covenant, that between the disciples of the Gospel and the poor.

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