Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a people acquired by God
to proclaim his marvellous works.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Song of Songs 6, 4-12
LOVER: You are fair as Tirzah, my beloved, enchanting as Jerusalem, formidable as an army!
Turn your eyes away from me, they take me by assault! Your hair is like a flock of goats surging down the slopes of Gilead.
Your teeth are like a flock of ewes as they come up from being washed. Each one has its twin, not one unpaired with another.
Your cheeks, behind your veil, are halves of pomegranate.
There are sixty queens and eighty concubines (and countless girls).
My dove is my only one, perfect and mine. She is the darling of her mother, the favourite of the one who bore her. Girls have seen her and proclaimed her blessed, queens and concubines have sung her praises,
'Who is this arising like the dawn, fair as the moon, resplendent as the sun, formidable as an army?'
I went down to the nut orchard to see the fresh shoots in the valley, to see if the vines were budding and the pomegranate trees in flower.
Before I knew . . . my desire had hurled me onto the chariots of Amminadib!
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The lover compares his beloved’s beauty to that of the great cities. Tirzah was the first capital of the Northern kingdom after the fall of Solomon’s empire, but we do not know much about it. Here it appears alongside Jerusalem. Both are beautiful: Jerusalem was and is, and presumably, so was Tirzah. It is remarkable that in all of Scripture, but especially in the New Testament, salvation is presented as a city, the heavenly Jerusalem. This is not by accident. The Bible reveals that God does not save people one by one, but by gathering them together in a people and having them live together in a city. There is an unavoidable social dimension to the Judeo-Christian faith. The personal beauty of the beloved is described in verses four to seven, but this does not eliminate her plural dimension: in her are present the entire people of Israel and the entire Church, which have so enraptured the Lord’s heart that he says, "Turn away your eyes from me, for they overwhelm me!" For God, this is an absolutely unique love. The bride is the only one among a thousand women who can satisfy the groom’s love. He is not interested in a harem full of wives and concubines like Solomon’s, because the bride alone contains within her everything that her lover hopes for and desires. She is not just the "only one" for her mother, but also for her husband. We could say there were many possible brides, but the Lord chose only one. Certainly, all nations belong to the Lord, and in truth, all were chosen for different roles, but Israel is unique in the Lord’s eyes. Only Israel is for the Lord a "treasured possession...a priestly kingdom and a holy nation" (Ex 19:5-6). In Israel, the function of priests was, on the one hand, to present the people to the Lord through sacrifices and praise, and, on the other, to ascertain the Lord’s will about concrete moral questions. Israel was chosen to be a priest among the nations - just like the Church - to gather all people around the Lord. Both Israel and the Church are tools the Lord uses to gather humanity to its fullest realization: a family of peoples gathered around the Lord. Along these lines, the Second Vatican Council affirmed that the Church should be the "sacrament of unity of the entire human race." The female chorus intervenes in verse ten and praises the beauty and strength of the woman, comparing her to the heavenly lights and an army with unfurled banners. She responds with the image of the garden as the place of intimacy between the lovers, enveloped in an eternal springtime.
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
