Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I am the good shepherd,
my sheep listen to my voice,
and they become
one flock and one fold.
.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Matthew 24, 42-51
'So stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming.
You may be quite sure of this, that if the householder had known at what time of the night the burglar would come, he would have stayed awake and would not have allowed anyone to break through the wall of his house.
Therefore, you too must stand ready because the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
'Who, then, is the wise and trustworthy servant whom the master placed over his household to give them their food at the proper time?
Blessed that servant if his master's arrival finds him doing exactly that.
In truth I tell you, he will put him in charge of everything he owns.
But if the servant is dishonest and says to himself, "My master is taking his time,"
and sets about beating his fellow-servants and eating and drinking with drunkards,
his master will come on a day he does not expect and at an hour he does not know.
The master will cut him off and send him to the same fate as the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The reading of the Gospel of Matthew that has accompanied us through this season is coming to an end. The Gospel passages we will read report Jesus’ words about the last days. We - Jesus warns - do not know the day nor the hour when these events will occur. Therefore what is asked of us is to be awake. It is almost like a mission that the Lord has entrusted to all believers. Jesus’ uses a parable of vigilance to explain this and says that every disciple is given a mission to carry out. It is not given to us to serve our own interests or our own self-realization, but to help the community of believers grow. It is good to remember that the Lord does not save us individually but by gathering us in a family, a people. It is in this sense that we should understand the parable that was just announced to us. Indeed, Jesus talks about the responsibility of watching over the servants and providing for their needs. In the Gospel, consequently, vigilance is not simply empty waiting, nor is it a busyness that is only directed at taking care of oneself. The vigilance of which Jesus speaks is an attentive and industrious faithfulness to the vocation which the Lord has given us to watch over the entire house, avoiding the attitude of both those who believe themselves to be masters and those who relax in laziness and irresponsibility. Each believer, no matter what task he or she has been given in the house, is responsible for all the other members of household. This is the true happiness of the disciple and his or her true self-realization, as Jesus himself says: "Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives." Unfortunately, selfishness easily prevails in us and leads us to toil for ourselves and our things, distracting us from the vocation the Lord has given us. This Gospel teaching puts us on guard against the religious individualism that has infiltrated the minds of many believers and that diminishes the substance of the Gospel and makes the community less strong. An individualistic Christianity gives rise to quarrelling and misunderstanding, abuse and envy, condemning us to the sadness and dissatisfaction of which the Gospel speaks. We will be blessed if we keep the vigilance of love in our hearts so that all will be welcomed, guarded, and defended.
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
