EVERYDAY PRAYER

Holy Family Sunday
Word of god every day

Holy Family Sunday

Sunday of the Holy Family
Memory of Laurindo and Madora, young Mozambicans of the Community of Sant'Egidio who died because of the war. With them we remember all of the young people killed because of conflict and the violence of humanity.
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Libretto DEL GIORNO
Holy Family Sunday
Sunday, December 30

Sunday of the Holy Family
Memory of Laurindo and Madora, young Mozambicans of the Community of Sant’Egidio who died because of the war. With them we remember all of the young people killed because of conflict and the violence of humanity.


Reading of the Gospel

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Glory to God in the highest
and peace on earth to the people he loves.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Luke 2, 41-52

Every year his parents used to go to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover.

When he was twelve years old, they went up for the feast as usual.

When the days of the feast were over and they set off home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem without his parents knowing it.

They assumed he was somewhere in the party, and it was only after a day's journey that they went to look for him among their relations and acquaintances.

When they failed to find him they went back to Jerusalem looking for him everywhere.

It happened that, three days later, they found him in the Temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them, and asking them questions;

and all those who heard him were astounded at his intelligence and his replies.

They were overcome when they saw him, and his mother said to him, 'My child, why have you done this to us? See how worried your father and I have been, looking for you.'

He replied, 'Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?'

But they did not understand what he meant.

He went down with them then and came to Nazareth and lived under their authority. His mother stored up all these things in her heart.

And Jesus increased in wisdom, in stature, and in favour with God and with people.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

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