Memory of Moses. Called by the Lord, he freed the people of Israel from the slavery of Egypt and led them to the "promised land." Read more
Memory of Moses. Called by the Lord, he freed the people of Israel from the slavery of Egypt and led them to the "promised land."
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
Jude 1, 17-19
But remember, my dear friends, what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold.
'At the final point of time', they told you, 'there will be mockers who follow nothing but their own godless desires.'
It is they who cause division, who live according to nature and do not possess the Spirit.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
After having described and condemned the work of false teachers at great length, the apostle did not want the believers to be too surprised-a bit scandalized, yes, but not shocked-by what was happening around them. As the apostle appears to suggest, salvation does not lie in the purity of the community (or of the Church) or in its blemish-free members. Salvation is only in Jesus. Of course, we cannot remain indifferent to the evil that enters the Christian community. On the contrary, being fully aware of it, we should entrust ourselves to the Lord and give ourselves in every way possible to the struggle to overcome evil and cast it out of the lives of our brothers and sisters. That there will inevitably be problems in the community, however, is evidenced by what the apostles said to the first communities: "In the last time there will be scoffers, indulging their own ungodly lusts" (v. 18). If anything, this apostolic warning says that the final days have come-that is, the days have arrived in which the prince of evil unleashes his final attack. I believe that this is how this passage should be interpreted. We are in the final days in the sense that the prince of evil does not have that much time before him and therefore must launch his definitive attack. In the words of the apostle, the request to be conscious of the urgency of this struggle is particularly strong. We, too, are no longer able to hesitate, we no longer have time to postpone; every laziness, every resignation, and every indecision risks our becoming complicit. Truly, we are in the final days. Evil-and we can see it with our own eyes-assaults with extraordinary force both against the community of brothers and sisters and against the world. This is why we need to pray unceasingly to the Lord that he protect our community and the Church from evil. The apostle pauses to consider, in particular, the evil of division. Often in the New Testament the disciples are put on guard against this danger. The apostle Paul recalls in Corinthians, Galatians and Timothy to pay attention to this threat because it undermines the message of the Gospel. Today we cannot help but think of the divisions that separate Christians from each other and of the scandals that provoke such divisions. But, this is not all. Such divisions also increase peoples’ tendency to divide themselves and fight. We need to be aware of all of this and ask for assistance from the Lord to set out more bravely on the opposite path.
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
