EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of Jesus crucified
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of Jesus crucified
Friday, August 3


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

2 Peter 3, 8-18

But there is one thing, my dear friends, that you must never forget: that with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

The Lord is not being slow in carrying out his promises, as some people think he is; rather is he being patient with you, wanting nobody to be lost and everybody to be brought to repentance.

The Day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then with a roar the sky will vanish, the elements will catch fire and melt away, the earth and all that it contains will be burned up.

Since everything is coming to an end like this, what holy and saintly lives you should be living

while you wait for the Day of God to come, and try to hasten its coming: on that Day the sky will dissolve in flames and the elements melt in the heat.

What we are waiting for, relying on his promises, is the new heavens and new earth, where uprightness will be at home.

So then, my dear friends, while you are waiting, do your best to live blameless and unsullied lives so that he will find you at peace.

Think of our Lord's patience as your opportunity to be saved; our brother Paul, who is so dear to us, told you this when he wrote to you with the wisdom that he was given.

He makes this point too in his letters as a whole wherever he touches on these things. In all his letters there are of course some passages which are hard to understand, and these are the ones that uneducated and unbalanced people distort, in the same way as they distort the rest of scripture -to their own destruction.

Since you have been forewarned about this, my dear friends, be careful that you do not come to the point of losing the firm ground that you are standing on, carried away by the errors of unprincipled people.

Instead, continue to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory, in time and eternity. Amen.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

To the Christians who wonder why Christ’s return has not yet happened, the apostle reminds them that God measures time in a way completely different from ours. He writes, "But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day". By this, Peter means that for every Christian generation the end times are those in which we are currently living. Each believer lives, in fact, in his or her own end times and is called to live them with the responsibility required of every disciple of the Gospel. For this reason the apostle adds, "The Lord is not slow about his promise". Indeed, whoever accepts the Gospel in his or her own heart already lives in the end times, that is, in the family of those saved by the Lord Jesus, risen from the dead for our salvation. Certainly the final day, the day of death, comes to each of us; and it will come like a thief. Hence, Peter also recalls the teachings of Paul so that each one of us may have before our eyes God’s judgment and may conform our life to God’s will. By living a Gospel life, Christians hasten the coming of the final days. By participating in the Liturgy, living in fraternal communion, serving the poor with love, and demanding universal solidarity, believers not only glimpse the "new heavens and a new earth" of which Revelation speaks, but somehow they presently live them out. Certainly there is a waiting for fulfilment that is part of Christian hope. However this does not mean a disordered way of living, as if the end of time was always far. Indeed at least each one’s own end of time is never too far. Peter, therefore, exhorts those dispersed Christians to grow in love and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, so that when he does come on our final day he may find us "at peace, without spot or blemish."

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR

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!

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR