Reading of the Word of God
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
1 Timothy 1, 1-7
Paul, apostle of Christ Jesus appointed by the command of God our Saviour and of Christ Jesus our hope,
to Timothy, true child of mine in the faith. Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Christ Jesus our Lord.
When I was setting out for Macedonia I urged you to stay on in Ephesus to instruct certain people not to spread wrong teaching
or to give attention to myths and unending genealogies; these things only foster doubts instead of furthering God's plan which is founded on faith.
The final goal at which this instruction aims is love, issuing from a pure heart, a clear conscience and a sincere faith.
Some people have missed the way to these things and turned to empty speculation,
trying to be teachers of the Law; but they understand neither the words they use nor the matters about which they make such strong assertions.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
After the first imprisonment in Rome (61-63), during a missionary trip, Paul had left Timothy in Ephesus as his representative and head of the Christian community. Paul had been there three years, from 54 to 57 (Acts 19); thereafter, taking leave of the elders, in the trip to Jerusalem, he exhorted them to watchfulness (Acts 20:31). On that occasion he had already predicted, "After I have gone ... Some even from your own group will come distorting the truth in order to entice the disciples to follow them" (Acts 20:30). He had thus urged Timothy to take a decisive stance against those who preached opinions far removed from the Gospel. The Letter, even though addressed to Timothy, is intended for the whole community, which, because of the false teachers, risks falling away from the "divine training." Paul, invoking his apostolic authority, asks everyone to listen to Timothy as if it were he himself, not only because he is truly linked to him, as he writes to the Philippians: "I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. All of them are seeking their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But Timothy’s worth you know, how like a son with a father he has served with me in the work of the gospel" (2:20-22). But also because, through the link with the apostle, Timothy refers to "God our Saviour" and to "Christ Jesus our hope." Paul thus clarifies the meaning of authority in the Christian community. The one who is placed as guide has the task of serving, in God’s name, the unity of all in keeping the Gospel of love so that it may be communicated to all. This is why Timothy must oppose those in the community who spread "myths and endless genealogies." In this way people lose themselves in "speculations" and wander far from "the divine training that is known by faith." Paul adds that the "aim of such instruction" - that is the very mission of the entire Christian community throughout the centuries - is love (agape)," that is the very love of God that we should live and communicate to the world. It is obvious that the growth of resentments and the spreading of fights make communion difficult among brothers and sisters and the mission of the community. The Gospel was communicated to the brothers and sisters of the community so that God’s love would grow among all. Such love - agape - does not come from a human attitude and it is not a natural attribute of human beings, but instead is a gift that we receive from God. Agape is a love that does not know any limit and does not demand reciprocity, as it is totally gratuitous. When the apostle writes that agape comes "from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith", he wants to clarify that it is the love God puts in our hearts through his Spirit. To the Corinthians, he wrote that without love we are like "a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal" (1 Cor 13:1). This always happens when, forgetting that we are disciples, we pose as "doctors of the law," and we seek our interests and not those of Christ. Arrogance and self-assurance are the seeds that corrupt the life of the community, because they threaten it in its very core: love.
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
