Memory of the Virgin Mary, venerated as Our Lady of LuAnn in Argentina. Read more
Memory of the Virgin Mary, venerated as Our Lady of LuAnn in Argentina.
Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.
The child you shall bear will be holy.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Galatians 4, 21-31
Tell me then, you are so eager to be subject to the Law, have you listened to what the Law says?
Scripture says that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave girl and one by the freewoman.
The son of the slave girl came to be born in the way of human nature; but the son of the freewoman came to be born through a promise.
There is an allegory here: these women stand for the two covenants. The one given on Mount Sinai -- that is Hagar, whose children are born into slavery;
now Sinai is a mountain in Arabia and represents Jerusalem in its present state, for she is in slavery together with her children.
But the Jerusalem above is free, and that is the one that is our mother;
as scripture says: Shout for joy, you barren woman who has borne no children! Break into shouts of joy, you who were never in labour. For the sons of the forsaken one are more in number than the sons of the wedded wife.
Now you, brothers, are like Isaac, children of the promise;
just as at that time, the child born in the way of human nature persecuted the child born through the Spirit, so now.
But what is it that scripture says? Drive away that slave girl and her son; the slave girl's son is not to share the inheritance with the son of the freewoman.
So, brothers, we are the children not of the slave girl but of the freewoman.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
To keep the Galatians from falling back into the slavery of the law, Paul returns to the account of the Book of Genesis and narrates the episode of the "two sons of Abraham": Ishmael, the son of the slave Hagar, the concubine, and Isaac, the son of the free Sarah, the legitimate wife and mistress of the house. The difference between Ishmael and Isaac is not only that they have two different mothers. They were also conceived in two different ways: Ishmael by natural generation and Isaac by "the promise." Paul declares that all of this happened as an "allegory" of what would really happen in the future. Hagar, the slave, represents the covenant of Sinai that "bears children for slavery," the slavery of the law (Paul makes a reference to Arabia). Sarah instead represents the free woman and she is "our mother" whose seat is in the "Jerusalem above." It is from this second Jerusalem that Christians receive liberty. Being children of the free woman, we are therefore called to live in freedom from the law. This, Paul writes, is what Isaiah, the prophet of the exile, sang: the barren woman sings with joy because she has been granted numberless children. Through God’s intervention, Sarah, barren and despised, was made the mother of a great people. Paul reminds the Galatians that, like Isaac, they are "children of the promise" and that therefore they should not cry over their condition of slavery. And unfortunately, what happened between Ishmael and Isaac can repeat itself: the children of the terrestrial Jerusalem can persecute the children of the "Jerusalem above." But this demonstrates that the free children are the heirs of the promise, notwithstanding the present difficulties. Christians need to keep this exhortation in their hearts, knowing that the difficulties of the present - even those of today - should not take our eyes from the heavenly Jerusalem towards which we are moving.
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
