Memory of St. Gregory the Great (540-604), pope and doctor of the Church. Read more
Memory of St. Gregory the Great (540-604), pope and doctor of the Church.
Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Luke 6, 1-5
It happened that one Sabbath he was walking through the cornfields, and his disciples were picking ears of corn, rubbing them in their hands and eating them.
Some of the Pharisees said, 'Why are you doing something that is forbidden on the Sabbath day?'
Jesus answered them, 'So you have not read what David did when he and his followers were hungry-
how he went into the house of God and took the loaves of the offering and ate them and gave them to his followers, loaves which the priests alone are allowed to eat?'
And he said to them, 'The Son of man is master of the Sabbath.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Jewish law forbad the picking and eating of ears of wheat on the Sabbath. The Pharisees, scrupulous observers of the Law, but often forgetful of their people’s hearts and lives, observe the disciples plucking heads of grain to eat as they passed through a grain field and accuse them of not respecting the Sabbath rest. The rabbis, in fact, had listed 39 types of work that were prohibited on the Sabbath, and among them were reaping, threshing and winnowing grain. Jesus avoids getting into a casuistic debate, and replies to the accusation by recalling the episode when David, fleeing from Saul who wanted to kill him, took refuge in the temple. While in the temple, the priest allowed the fugitive to eat the bread "of the presence" (called this because it was placed before God) which was only for priests to eat during the week of worship. David’s need impelled Ahimelech the high priest to set aside this legislative prescription so that David could survive. The law’s truth concerning the day of rest’ lies in the need to put ourselves totally and fully at the service of the Lord. It is not a question of exterior ritual observance. The Lord asks us to rest from work, to participate in the holy Liturgy where we are built into God’s one family, and to enable everyone to live, particularly the poor, the little ones and the sick, the feast of God’s love, that is, the joy of siblings who are together. Jesus is lord even of the Sabbath, not in the sense that he can capriciously choose not to follow what is prescribed, but so that it can be brought to fulfilment: that brothers and sisters are freed from loneliness, pain and the slavery of inhumane labour. This is the sense in which Christians are called to live out Sunday. And we should ask ourselves if, in a world in which everything seems to be subject to the laws of the marketplace and consumption, it is not an urgent task for Christians today to rethink the meaning of the day of rest as one for praising God, living in community and helping the poor.
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
