Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Song of Songs 5, 1-8
LOVER: I come into my garden, my sister, my promised bride, I pick my myrrh and balsam, I eat my honey and my honeycomb, I drink my wine and my milk. POET: Eat, friends, and drink, drink deep, my dearest friends.
BELOVED: I sleep, but my heart is awake. I hear my love knocking. 'Open to me, my sister, my beloved, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is wet with dew, my hair with the drops of night.'
-'I have taken off my tunic, am I to put it on again? I have washed my feet, am I to dirty them again?'
My love thrust his hand through the hole in the door; I trembled to the core of my being.
Then I got up to open to my love, myrrh ran off my hands, pure myrrh off my fingers, on to the handle of the bolt.
I opened to my love, but he had turned and gone. My soul failed at his flight, I sought but could not find him, I called, but he did not answer.
The watchmen met me, those who go on their rounds in the city. They beat me, they wounded me, they took my cloak away from me: those guardians of the ramparts!
I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem, if you should find my love, what are you to tell him? -That I am sick with love!
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The second part of the fifth chapter opens with a question by "the daughters of Jerusalem" to the woman who has asked for their help in finding her beloved (5:8). Astonished by her insistence, the women ask her, "What is your beloved more than another beloved?" She responds with a description of the beauty of her beloved. It is she, this time, who reciprocates the eulogies that her beloved made for her (4:8-15). This time the description is not abstract, but very concrete, as if to emphasize the incarnation of the love of God. This is why Gregory of Nissan, commenting on this passage, writes, "All of these similes of beauty do not indicate divine, invisible and incomprehensible things, but rather that which was revealed in the history of salvation, when he [God the Logos] was seen on earth [...] and he acquired human nature." The beloved begins the eulogies of her beloved by affirming his vitality: he is "radiant and ruddy," she exclaims. The Targum comments, "Therefore the Assembly of Israel began to proclaim the praise of the Sovereign of the world, and the people said thus: that God I desire to serve, who by day shrouds himself in a spotless cloak like the snow, and studies the twenty-four books of the law, and the words of the prophets and hagiographers, and by night studies the six orders of the Mishna. And the splendour of the glory of the Lord irradiated by His face is like fire." The mountain of the Transfiguration comes to mind when the evangelist notes, "His face shone like the sun and his clothes became white like the light" (Mt 17:2). The woman continues with the praises of the body of her beloved: he has wavy locks black as raven, tender eyes like doves, white and shining teeth, cheeks with a scented beard, warm lips like the red lilies of Palestine and arms adorned with rings. She praises his body: it has the colour of ivory, and legs like alabaster columns. Finally, the beloved even praises the "speech" of her beloved, that is, his "words." The beloved has words of love. This emphasis on the beloved’s words reminds us that the Word of God does not cease addressing God’s people, even his Church today especially when it gathers in the holy liturgy. Faced with such praise that the bride makes of the bridegroom, should we not also sing all of our amazement for a God that loves us in such a unique way? Indeed "He is altogether desirable." The beloved explains to the daughters of Jerusalem the reason for her passionate search: "This is my beloved and this is my friend." She knows that there is nothing greater, nothing more delightful, and nothing more lovable than her beloved.
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
