Memory of Gigi, a child from Naples who was violently killed. With him we remember all the children who suffer and who die because of human violence. Prayer for all children. Read more
Memory of Gigi, a child from Naples who was violently killed. With him we remember all the children who suffer and who die because of human violence. Prayer for all children.
Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Romans 6, 1-11
What should we say then? Should we remain in sin so that grace may be given the more fully?
Out of the question! We have died to sin; how could we go on living in it?
You cannot have forgotten that all of us, when we were baptised into Christ Jesus, were baptised into his death.
So by our baptism into his death we were buried with him, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father's glorious power, we too should begin living a new life.
If we have been joined to him by dying a death like his, so we shall be by a resurrection like his;
realising that our former self was crucified with him, so that the self which belonged to sin should be destroyed and we should be freed from the slavery of sin.
Someone who has died, of course, no longer has to answer for sin.
But we believe that, if we died with Christ, then we shall live with him too.
We know that Christ has been raised from the dead and will never die again. Death has no power over him any more.
For by dying, he is dead to sin once and for all, and now the life that he lives is life with God.
In the same way, you must see yourselves as being dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Paul, in the preceding chapter, spoke about the justification of a sinful man, of which Adam is the archetype, and about God’s salvation poured out on all believers. Now he affirms that this salvation comes through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus. The believer, therefore, is pushed from within to live a new life that is immersed, through the grace of baptism. In Christ, the old person dies and is buried and then arises a different human being who overcame physical death and every form of death. The grace that is given through the encounter with Jesus does not accommodate any sin, and does not justify slowness and weakness in following the Lord. On the contrary, this grace means liberation from the power of sin: “How can we who died to sin go on living in it?” Paul asks. To be immersed in the death and resurrection of Christ does not mean a simple purification that changes something on the surface. Much more profoundly, it means to make die in us the old person that is enslaved by tradition and pride, so as to give birth and grow the new human being who lives by the strength of the resurrection of Jesus. Paul concludes: “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Christian life places itself from beginning to end in the mystery of salvation that is Easter. Union with Jesus determines the spiritual journey of each disciple.
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
