EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Saints and the Prophets
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Saints and the Prophets
Wednesday, February 8


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

Proverbs 16, 1-15

A human heart makes the plans, Yahweh gives the answer.

A person's own acts seem right to the doer, but Yahweh is the weigher of souls.

Commend what you do to Yahweh, and what you plan will be achieved.

Yahweh made everything for its own purpose, yes, even the wicked for the day of disaster.

Every arrogant heart is abhorrent to Yahweh: be sure this will not go unpunished.

By faithful love and constancy sin is expiated; by fear of Yahweh evil is avoided.

Let Yahweh be pleased with someone's way of life and he makes that person's very enemies into friends.

Better have little and with it uprightness than great revenues with injustice.

The human heart may plan a course, but it is Yahweh who makes the steps secure.

The lips of the king utter prophecies, he keeps faith when he speaks in judgement.

The balances and scales belong to Yahweh, all the weights in the bag are of his making.

Evil-doing is abhorrent to kings, since uprightness is a throne's foundation.

Upright lips are welcome to a king, he loves someone of honest words.

The king's wrath is the herald of death, but the wise will appease it.

When the king's face brightens it spells life, his favour is like the rain in spring.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

In a particular way, chapter 16 reflects a difference in tone from the one we have seen in Proverbs up until this point, for the Lord enters the scene as an absolute protagonist. If the "fear of the Lord is the school of wisdom" as the last chapter states, now God presents himself as the origin of wisdom and as the one who rules the universe and guides the life of humanity. In the middle of his book, the author, having brought together proverbs and reflections of various origins, now wants to affirm more explicitly that everything depends on God and that he is the source of wisdom. This is why for humanity the fear of God is the absolute beginning of every kind of wisdom and knowledge because everything comes from him. This does not devalue or discount what has been said in preceding passages and even less that humanity is responsible for seeking out science and knowledge. At the beginning, the author effectively expresses the contrast: "The plans of the mind belong to mortals, but the answer of the tongue is from the LORD. All the ways may be pure in one’s own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit" (v. 1-2). Humans can plan, and all that they do may seem good to them, but the actual outcome and the judgement are in the Lord’s hands. Without him nothing reaches its fulfilment. "The human mind plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps" (v. 9). This is why we should entrust what we do to the Lord since through him our work will end well, because the Lord is the one who "has made everything for its purpose." Here we should grasp the reference to pride. The heart that is full of arrogance thinks that everything depends on it and acts as if God did not exist. It considers itself its own master and also that of the universe, even of life and of death. This passage is a warning to each one of us, contemporary men and women, when we sometimes look for the definitive scientific discoveries to affirm our own power over everything and decisions on life and death. Think of the field of bioethics, for example, where we are called to reconcile science to life in its diverse stages from conception to death. It is not by chance that after the first verses, a dedication to the king follows. The king was the absolute lord and the one to whom was entrusted governance and the administration of justice. The king was the one who could decide on the life or death of his subjects. Here we see the author’s praise for kings, as they represent the Lord on Earth, yet their judgment and rule are not absolute. Even the king is subject to divine justice, "Honest balances and scales are the Lord’s; all the weights in the bag are his work." Scales, balances and weights in the bag signify all that is consistent with establishing justice. The king does not have absolute power, for his work is subject to divine justice.

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR

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!

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR