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 11, 1-4
Now it happened that he was in a certain place praying, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said, 'Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.'
He said to them, 'When you pray, this is what to say: Father, may your name be held holy, your kingdom come;
give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive each one who is in debt to us. And do not put us to the test.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
More than once in the Gospel of Luke it is written that Jesus went off in secluded places to pray, often at night. This was an extraordinary experience for the disciples. They paid close attention to their Master’s prayer. In the passage we heard, Luke tells us that, at the end of one of these moments of Jesus’ prayer, one of the disciples got close to him and in the name of all asked Jesus: "Lord, teach us to pray." This is a beautiful question that we need to make our own. We need to learn how to pray. And we need to pray as Jesus prayed, with the same faith and the same intimacy that he felt towards the Father. Jesus turned to the Father like the Son that he truly was. And that is what he wants his disciples to do. The first word that he puts on their lips is "abba", dad, the tender name that children used for their fathers. Thus, it is immediately made clear that the Father Jesus is talking about is common to us all, "our" Father, in fact. The first attitude required in prayer is that we recognize ourselves as sons and daughters, children who trust our common Father completely. Much more than multiplying words, prayer is an act of trust and abandonment to God. Only words which come from the heart reach up to God’s heaven, to His heart. Jesus then puts on our lips the words of praise to the Father so that his name be praised and his kingdom come quickly among human beings: it is precisely because of this that the father has sent the Son upon the earth. Human beings are enslaved by so many tyrannies more or less visible but inexorable. We need the kingdom of God to come quickly, the kingdom of love, of justice and of peace. Then Jesus has us ask for bread for our daily lives and mutual forgiveness: bread and forgiveness, two essential dimensions of our life especially in this time in which poverty seems to be increasing along with the spirit of conflict and violence. This prayer which has entered for centuries the hearts of Christians is a precious treasure which must continually mark the tempo of the hours and days of the disciples.
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
