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
1 Peter 3, 8-12
Finally: you should all agree among yourselves and be sympathetic; love the brothers, have compassion and be self-effacing.
Never repay one wrong with another, or one abusive word with another; instead, repay with a blessing. That is what you are called to do, so that you inherit a blessing.
For Who among you delights in life, longs for time to enjoy prosperity? Guard your tongue from evil, your lips from any breath of deceit.
Turn away from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it.
For the eyes of the Lord are on the upright, his ear turned to their cry. But the Lord's face is set against those who do evil.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Peter knows well how important harmony is in the life of the community. He feels the need of re-proposing it, inscribing it into the spirit of the Beatitudes: to be compassionate, fraternal and humble of heart. The initial appeal that Jesus had emphasized in his Sermon on the Mount is the background of this exhortation: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt 5:48). The request to overcome evil with good, to watch one’s tongue and to strive for peace and justice, does not have the flavour of an unattainable utopia, although it does preserve the dimension of "heroism" inherent in the Gospel. To water it down, or worse, to cut it out entirely means to kill the very heart of the Gospel. The disciples of Jesus know very well that they are not less than their Teacher and that like him they are called to bless and not curse. Besides, the task of Christians is not to save themselves, but to serve the world, saving it from sin and death. Christians, regarding their role in the world, must carry out a kind of ministry of benediction: they are called to humanize the world that seems to become more cruel and inhuman. Hence, in our time in which arrogance and violence seem to dominate entire cities and countries, their task is more urgent than ever. Facing a growing widespread blind violence, Peter’s appeal to turn away from evil and to do good, to seek peace, indeed to strive for it, sounds particularly daunting. His appeal is about not resigning ourselves to evil and its work and doing everything possible to pursue the great good that is peace, not responding to violence with violence. It is not a hopeless choice, rather it is the only way to defeat evil. The apostle reminds that "The eyes of the Lord" watch over the believers, who spend their life working for peace and justice, and His ears are attentive to their prayers.
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
