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
Song of Songs 1, 7-8
Tell me then, sweetheart, where will you lead your flock to graze, where will you rest it at noon? That I may no more wander like a vagabond beside the flocks of your companions.
CHORUS: If you do not know this, O loveliest of women, follow the tracks of the flock, and take your kids to graze close by the shepherds' tents.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
In two verses, the author presents us with the woman’s search for her beloved who has not yet entered the scene. Nonetheless, she invokes him and says, "Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you pasture your flock, where you make it lie down at noon." Her inquiry is both sincere and in earnest. The response, however, is not as passion-filled; it doesn’t even seem that cordial, "Follow the tracks of the flock." The woman’s desire is not enough to know the way to her beloved, she needs directions. She is right to ask, for she does not wish to run in vain or follow errant sheep, "for why should I be like one who is veiled beside the flocks of your companions?" The sentiments of this woman call the believer to reflection. They suggest that directions from the Lord are indispensable so that our search may not be in vain.
There is an indispensible bond between the desire for God, the search for his friendship and the directions that he himself must give us. In the Second book of Chronicles, for example, during a difficult moment in the history of Israel, where peace was truly rare, the prophet Azariah says to the crowd of believers, "The Lord is with you, while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you abandon him, he will abandon you. For a long time Israel was without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law; but when in their distress they turned to the Lord, the God of Israel, and sought him, he was found by them."(2 Chr 15:2-4). The search for the Lord needs God’s help in order to end well. He knows us more deeply than we know ourselves, and not only will he not abandon us, but He will give us help along the way. At this point, it is not by chance that the author introduces the "chorus" who gently exhorts the "fairest among women" to "follow the tracks of the flock, and pasture [her] kids beside the shepherds’ tents." The believer is invited to "follow the tracks of the flock"; that is, to remain with the people that God has chosen and not to go far from the Community that God himself has built. It is in this Community that the Lord dwells so that no one will go astray. Indeed, as Psalm 121 says: "The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and for evermore" (121:8). God does not abandon his children to a blind destiny or worse, to the mercy of evil. In truth, we are asked to strengthen our search for God so that we do not lose him but rather find him again. Similar to the woman of the Song of Songs, we can see another woman, Mary Magdalene, who never stops looking for Jesus, her beloved, even after his death. Once at the tomb, hurt, she asks the gardener, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away" (Jn 20:15). And the Lord let himself be found.
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
