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
1 John 3, 4-10
Whoever sins, acts wickedly, because all sin is wickedness.
Now you are well aware that he has appeared in order to take sins away, and that in him there is no sin.
No one who remains in him sins, and whoever sins has neither seen him nor recognised him.
Children, do not let anyone lead you astray. Whoever acts uprightly is upright, just as he is upright.
Whoever lives sinfully belongs to the devil, since the devil has been a sinner from the beginning. This was the purpose of the appearing of the Son of God, to undo the work of the devil.
No one who is a child of God sins because God's seed remains in him. Nor can he sin, because he is a child of God.
This is what distinguishes the children of God from the children of the devil: whoever does not live uprightly and does not love his brother is not from God.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The apostle reminds Christians that Jesus came to free us from the iniquity that envelops those who do not remain connected to the Gospel. In speaking about sin as "iniquity," John is not thinking about the individual offences each one of us commits because of our weakness, but rather, the condition of those who live outside of love because they are separated from their brothers and sisters. The letter presents "abiding" in Christ as the opposite of iniquity. The bond with Jesus makes Christians so strong that John says that "no one who abides in him sins." By welcoming the love of God, believers defeat the power of evil and live in communion with God and their brothers and sisters. That is why "they cannot sin." Obviously the apostle is not promoting an attitude of foolish arrogance that would be the fruit of pride, but he wants his readers to understand the strength that comes from living in communion with one’s brothers and sisters. Even if everyone of us, including Jesus’ disciples, are sinners, however, the "seed," the Holy Spirit, that is planted in the heart of believers guides them on the path of love and does not let iniquity wrap them in its coils and drown them. John insists that whoever is born of God does not sin because the love of God abides in him or her by means of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit lets him or her do God’s work. The children of God distinguish themselves from the children of iniquity because the latter do not practice justice; that is, they do not observe the one commandment to love one another. It is only in love that true justice can be found.
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
