Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
James 2, 14-26
How does it help, my brothers, when someone who has never done a single good act claims to have faith? Will that faith bring salvation?
If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on,
and one of you says to them, 'I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty,' without giving them these bare necessities of life, then what good is that?
In the same way faith, if good deeds do not go with it, is quite dead.
But someone may say: So you have faith and I have good deeds? Show me this faith of yours without deeds, then! It is by my deeds that I will show you my faith.
You believe in the one God -- that is creditable enough, but even the demons have the same belief, and they tremble with fear.
Fool! Would you not like to know that faith without deeds is useless?
Was not Abraham our father justified by his deed, because he offered his son Isaac on the altar?
So you can see that his faith was working together with his deeds; his faith became perfect by what he did.
In this way the scripture was fulfilled: Abraham put his faith in God, and this was considered as making him upright; and he received the name 'friend of God'.
You see now that it is by deeds, and not only by believing, that someone is justified.
There is another example of the same kind: Rahab the prostitute, was she not justified by her deeds because she welcomed the messengers and showed them a different way to leave?
As a body without a spirit is dead, so is faith without deeds.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Paul writes that we are saved by faith, a statement that frees us from the arrogance of exacting salvation. Salvation is a free gift from God. James adds, however, that faith must enliven the disciple’s entire life. These two statements do not propose conflicting views, but rather one explanation. Faith necessarily liberates energies for good; in this sense, faith without works is dead. Besides, Jesus says, "Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven" (Mt 7:21). James insists, as he did now, on a Christianity that, starting from faith, becomes action, behaviour, choice of life. Today we are tempted to live a sentimental and individualistic faith that does not measure itself with choices in life as if it were merely a problem of my relationship with God without implying our actions. In fact a faith without life and deeds cannot exist. The apostle gives us a concrete and unmistakable example in order to make us understand his warning. With the example of refusing to help a brother or sister in need, James reveals the insensibility and harshness of a heart unmoved by others. Such behaviour is an evident betrayal of the essential commandment of love. And yet, this is what we usually do, feeling good for our feelings that we live with great emotion and personal involvement: we feel right for the good words we say and not for helping concretely those who ask something from us. It is not enough to believe in the abstract or just to perform specific deeds. Faith, by its nature, is informed by love and therefore is the source of change in both one’s heart and life. Particularly effective is the example of the demons who, although they believe in the existence of God, cannot be called believers. By necessity, faith brings about a new way of acting and new manifestations of love. Abraham is the model of the true believer: with trust he listened to whatever God asked of him and immediately set about to do it to the very end. His faith, initiated by his complete surrender to God’s will, became perfect in his work. And he was justified. The same was true also for Rahab who chose to remain with the people of God though she was a foreigner and a prostitute. James concludes with another image: as the dead body signifies the lack of soul, so the lack of deeds signifies the lack of a living faith. The final judgment, as told in Matthew 25, unequivocally justifies these words by the apostle.
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
