EVERYDAY PRAYER

Sunday Vigil
Word of god every day

Sunday Vigil

For Muslims it is the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting (‘Aid-l fitr). Read more

Libretto DEL GIORNO
Sunday Vigil
Saturday, August 18

For Muslims it is the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting (‘Aid-l fitr).


Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

1 John 4, 7-16

My dear friends, let us love one another, since love is from God and everyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.

Whoever fails to love does not know God, because God is love.

This is the revelation of God's love for us, that God sent his only Son into the world that we might have life through him.

Love consists in this: it is not we who loved God, but God loved us and sent his Son to expiate our sins.

My dear friends, if God loved us so much, we too should love one another.

No one has ever seen God, but as long as we love one another God remains in us and his love comes to its perfection in us.

This is the proof that we remain in him and he in us, that he has given us a share in his Spirit.

We ourselves have seen and testify that the Father sent his Son as Saviour of the world.

Anyone who acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God.

We have recognised for ourselves, and put our faith in, the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

In this passage John reaches the culmination of his Letter and affirms that "God is love." By calling Christians "beloved," the apostle is doing more than expressing his affection; he is declaring the primacy of God’s love, which draws in and involves all those who believe in him. "Since God has loved us so much, we also ought to love one another." With these words the apostle underscores the originality of the love that comes from God. He immediately adds, "In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us." The consequences are clear - whoever does not love is far from God and does not know him, because God is love. Once again, this affirmation should not be considered an abstract theory about some generic divine benevolence. John explains God’s love through its manifestation in Jesus Christ, "God’s love appeared among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him." His manifestation to the world was the manifestation of His love in the history of humanity, then of Israel, that reached its fulfilment in the incarnation of His only begotten Son Jesus Christ. God’s love has a visible and steadfast story that we are able to know and in which we can participate. Consequently he can tell Christians, "Since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another." And it is not just any love; it is not "philia" or "eros", as the Greeks said, which still are valuable. Neither one nor the other are the fulfilment of the agape, that is, the love which leads us to give even one’s life for one’s brothers and sisters. Whoever welcomes this love abides in God and already knows him intimately.

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