EVERYDAY PRAYER

Liturgy of the Sunday
Word of god every day

Liturgy of the Sunday

Twenty-seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time Read more

Libretto DEL GIORNO
Liturgy of the Sunday
Sunday, October 7

Homily

"It is not good that the man should be alone." The Lord spoke this at the very beginning of human history, and these words are deeply written in every man’s and every woman’s heart. These words mean our most deeply-rooted vocation is to community, solidarity, and mutual support. We may say this is the vocation of the Lord himself. Actually, he is not a far-away and high loneliness but a communion of three Persons. The seed of this profound human vocation, indelibly sown in every creature’s heart, is the essence of every man and woman, and the entire creation. This is the real meaning of the fact that God made humanity in God’s likeness, as it is written in the book of Genesis (1:26-27). We could say that God does not live alone; likewise, no man and woman can live alone. Obviously, this is a broad concept including different kinds of communion, culminating in that communion we will see (and mostly we will fully experience) at the end of the time when "God may be all in all" (1 Cor 15:28). The unity of the human family will come true around our only Lord, our Father.
This 27th Sunday Gospel makes us reflect on a peculiar and essential kind of communion, originating from marriage. The occasion is given by the question that some Pharisees ask Jesus, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" The young prophet from Nazareth does not directly reply but refers to Moses’ instruction that allows a man to divorce his wife in case, "he finds something objectionable about her" (Deut 24:1). The meaning of "objectionable" had aroused controversy for centuries. Some considered adultery shameful; others thought despicable whatever did not please a wife’s husband. (Burning a meal was enough, according to Hillel’s school, to entitle a husband to claim a repudiation libel). However, Moses wanted to safeguard a wife’s right requiring a husband to produce a divorce libel. In this way, she could preserve her honour and also her freedom to marry again.
Jesus replies on a different level. He starts referring to the origin of creation, that is the very roots of human life. Jesus proposes explicitly the first page of Genesis (1:27 and 2:24) where he argues God linked the command, which he gave husband and wife to build an indissoluble unity, to the creation of human beings. A man and a woman would leave their original families (historically, these relations were much more significant at that time than they are now) to belong to one another in an indissoluble bond, "in joy, as in sorrow, in health as in sickness" as the nuptial rite states. Husband and wife, Jesus says, make up "one flesh." The word "one" is stressed more than the word "flesh" ("flesh" means "person taken as a whole" in Hebrew). Man and woman’s vocation to mutual communion is again emphasized. Adam rejoices at seeing Eve so Jesus expresses this vocation as one to love, and not to domination of man over woman, or vice versa. Men and women were created to love one another. This commandment derives from creation.
Humanity didn’t create the institution of marriage. It originated in creation itself, and it is such a high display of love that it is presented as an image of God’s love for his people. This image needs a particular grace from the Lord in order to become a life’s ideal from which one can draw inspiration.
From here, we could say, starts the sacrament of marriage. "Being together lifelong" is a high duty to take care of, to cultivate and to pray for. There are difficulties and problems, just as in all human relations, but God’s grace helps our weakness. In truth, the indissolubility of marriage is becoming more and more alien to our culture and to the dominating mentality of our time. People prefer and look for an immediate, easy, and low-cost pleasure. A self-centred, disposable procedure seems to have imposed itself even in this field. Jesus reminds us that in this way we are going farther and farther away from the Lord’s plan for humanity’s life and for creation. Communion is written deeply in the reasons of human history. A breaking off of a marriage is always a wound to creation. As it always happens the negative consequences pour out on the weaker, the most unprotected persons: the children, the old, the sick. There are extremely complicated situations and we must look after them with sympathy and mercy. The treasure of a lifelong decision that makes two persons "one flesh" must be protected nonetheless.
Christian marriage is distinctive also because it is a sacrament and the marvellous unity of Christ to the Church appears in it. This mystery is a departure point to understand how rich a Christian marriage is and to grasp what it means historically to a married couple, to their family, and to the entire Christian community. Just like the Church is joined to Christ as to become "one flesh," one body, a Christian married couple has to understand the mystery of their marriage. The Church as God’s family becomes itself the image of family originating from the sacrament of marriage. The Church is conceived as a mother which generates, takes care of, and goes along with all those "small home churches" as they build up. A Christian community has a motherly duty to support love and sympathy among her children with prayer and with all those deeds that her compassion will be able to create. Should it be necessary, the church has to offer additional love to all the small and weak harmed because they lack family love. The words from Genesis, "It is not good that the man should be alone!" must be realized in the Church better than elsewhere. The Church that is God’s family offers herself as everybody’s family, and, therefore, is the home of communion where nobody is left alone.

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