Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
1 Peter 4, 7-11
The end of all things is near, so keep your minds calm and sober for prayer.
Above all preserve an intense love for each other, since love covers over many a sin.
Welcome each other into your houses without grumbling.
Each one of you has received a special grace, so, like good stewards responsible for all these varied graces of God, put it at the service of others.
If anyone is a speaker, let it be as the words of God, if anyone serves, let it be as in strength granted by God; so that in everything God may receive the glory, through Jesus Christ, since to him alone belong all glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
"The end of all things is near" writes Peter in his letter. He does not speak about it as a terrible thing to undergo, but as a major event toward which we should go without delay with joy and reverence. It is necessary to be vigilant if one wants to seize the moment as an opportune time. The end of all things, however, is not something to put off to another time distant from our present existence. In truth, we should heed it as something in relation to the end our own days. Actually, we could say that every day for us is a final moment, or better, each day that never returns is in its own way decisive and definitive. For this reason, we should live each day as if it were the last, also because we never know when our last day will be. We should therefore be vigilant not just for a moment, but always, every day. Vigilance is not something abstract or that we do in a remote place. We are vigilant by persevering in prayer and living by love. To our consolation the apostle adds that love covers a great number of sins and quotes Proverbs in this regard: "Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offences" (10:12). The only way to defeat the hatred that divides people is love. Those who love their brothers and sisters, serve the poor and weak, and have concern for others, also prepare their own salvation. This is a conviction that spans the entire spiritual tradition of the Church. Moreover, Jesus himself makes this clear when he affirms that salvation depends on our love for the poor, which he explains in chapter twenty-five of Matthew’s Gospel. We are all called to conduct our lives by living them for others. Peter, among many ways of serving the community, points to two of them that are already found in the Acts of the Apostles: the service of the Word of God and the soup-kitchen. He invites us to rediscover the centrality of prayer and charity: the two tracks along which our salvation runs. All that we have received as a gift should be put at the service of others. In a certain sense we can say that life is a time in which we should return the debt of love that God provides every day for us. This is why love covers all sins and reconciles us with the Lord.
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
