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
Luke 11, 47-54
'Alas for you because you build tombs for the prophets, the people your ancestors killed!
In this way you both witness to what your ancestors did and approve it; they did the killing, you do the building.
'And that is why the Wisdom of God said, "I will send them prophets and apostles; some they will slaughter and persecute,
so that this generation will have to answer for every prophet's blood that has been shed since the foundation of the world,
from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the Temple." Yes, I tell you, this generation will have to answer for it all.
'Alas for you lawyers who have taken away the key of knowledge! You have not gone in yourselves and have prevented others from going in who wanted to.'
When he left there, the scribes and the Pharisees began a furious attack on him and tried to force answers from him on innumerable questions,
lying in wait to catch him out in something he might say.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Jesus continues his polemics against the Pharisees and scribes with his last two invectives. They, not content to impose obligations on others that they do not observe, maintain the same attitude of those Jews who did not listen to the prophets and killed them. In this way, however, they preclude entry into the kingdom both for themselves and for others. They hold the key to religious learning, but they are not able to open the way to God and, what is worse, they shut the door on the humble and weak who seek salvation. This is the most serious accusation. We should all listen carefully to these words of Jesus, beginning with those who have responsibility in the Christian community and elsewhere, well aware that in any case each one is called to be responsible for others. It is a question of the duty some have in regards to the rights of others. In this sense there is a "generational" joint responsibility; no one can say that he or she is not concerned with what happens in the temple in which he or she has come to live. Therefore we too, each one in his or her own way, are jointly responsible for those who are next to us and, in any case, for the increase in love among human beings. Such a responsibility is increased also because of the growth of evil in the world. And perhaps the first way we are responsible consists in not listening to the Word of God and in despising the prophets that the Lord continues to send even today into the world. We, too, will be called to account concerning the prophecy found in Scripture and the prophets that the Lord continues to send to the world. We can risk an even greater guilt than that of the scribes and Pharisees: how many prophets and martyrs in the last century gave witness to the primacy of God to the point of death! And aren’t there some also in our days? We have received the testimony of many witnesses, we have gotten many gifts, we have had loving brothers and sisters who have been good to us. They have opened to us the way of the Gospel of love. The Lord asks us to not remain blocked in concentration on ourselves, but to let ourselves be guided on the way to change our heart.
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
