Memory of Saints Cosmas and Damien, Syrian martyrs. The tradition remembers them as doctors who took care of the sick for free. Special memory of those who dedicate their lives to the treatment and healing of the sick. Read more
Memory of Saints Cosmas and Damien, Syrian martyrs. The tradition remembers them as doctors who took care of the sick for free. Special memory of those who dedicate their lives to the treatment and healing of the sick.
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
Luke 9, 46-50
An argument started between them about which of them was the greatest.
Jesus knew what thoughts were going through their minds, and he took a little child whom he set by his side
and then he said to them, 'Anyone who welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me, welcomes the one who sent me. The least among you all is the one who is the greatest.'
John spoke up. 'Master,' he said, 'we saw someone driving out devils in your name, and because he is not with us we tried to stop him.'
But Jesus said to him, 'You must not stop him: anyone who is not against you is for you.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Jesus has just spoken, for the second time, of what is waiting for him in Jerusalem. But the disciples have not understood Jesus’ words. Not because they were not clear, but because their minds were occupied with other things than those which stirred Jesus’ mind. The passage we have heard shows us what the disciples’ concerns were: Jesus is anguished by the death which awaits him and the disciples area arguing about who is greatest among them. It is a discussion which well shows the distance between their concerns and those of the Master. We could say that the disciples, as well as ourselves, are fully children of this world and the mentality of competitiveness that regulates relationships among people. It is a habit which sticks to each generation. It is the legacy of the first sin: the disobedience to God of Adam and Eve led to division between them and to mutual accusations. And so Jesus came to overturn these criteria which continue to poison relations between human beings. To make sure that the disciples understand his perspective, he takes a child and sets him at his side, as if to identify himself with the child, and says: "Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the least among all of you is the greatest." In the kingdom of heaven and therefore in the community of Jesus’ disciples, great is the one who becomes the least, that is a child of the Gospel, one who recognizes his or her own weakness, and trusts totally in the Lord. Whoever lives with a child’s trust, feeling that he or she is a child of God, knows how to hear his Word, has the very thought of God and knows how to recognize those things which come from God. This is why -according to the words Jesus saidthe disciple knows the good wherever it is taking place, even if the one doing it is not one of the disciples. To John and to every Christian who wants to not appreciate or worse to impede to doing of what’s good because it does not belong to the circle of disciples, Jesus repeats: "Do not stop him; for whoever is not against you is for you." It is a great wisdom teaching, but also a human lesson, which makes Jesus’ disciples able to recognize the activity of the Spirit in human history.
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
