Prayer for the unity of the Churches. Particular memory of the Christian communities in Africa. Read more
Prayer for the unity of the Churches. Particular memory of the Christian communities in Africa.
Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a people acquired by God
to proclaim his marvellous works.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Romans 8, 31-39
After saying this, what can we add? If God is for us, who can be against us?
Since he did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for the sake of all of us, then can we not expect that with him he will freely give us all his gifts?
Who can bring any accusation against those that God has chosen? When God grants saving justice
who can condemn? Are we not sure that it is Christ Jesus, who died -- yes and more, who was raised from the dead and is at God's right hand -- and who is adding his plea for us?
Can anything cut us off from the love of Christ -- can hardships or distress, or persecution, or lack of food and clothing, or threats or violence;
as scripture says: For your sake we are being massacred all day long, treated as sheep to be slaughtered?
No; we come through all these things triumphantly victorious, by the power of him who loved us.
For I am certain of this: neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nothing already in existence and nothing still to come, nor any power,
nor the heights nor the depths, nor any created thing whatever, will be able to come between us and the love of God, known to us in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The apostle concludes this part of the Letter, which is centred on the Spirit, with a hymn to God’s love. There is an initial question that demonstrates the power of faith: “If God is for us, who is against us?” Believers do not base their hope on themselves or their own strength, but on the steadfastness of God’s love. It is the Lord who defends, sustains, protects, and saves his children. He does everything to save them. Beginning with the burning bush in Sinai, God revealed himself as the one who would never abandon his people. By saying, “I am who I am,” he meant, “I am the one who is always with my people, who will company them in the desert, who will bring them into the promised land, and who sustains them every day.” The whole of Scripture describes the incredible descent of God’s love toward men and women. The culmination of this relationship comes with Jesus, the Emmanuel, the God with us. The Father’s love is so extraordinary that not only did he send his Son into the world; he even let him be “sacrificed” for the salvation of all. This is the love that gives substance to our faith. Using the image of a trial at which the believers are being prosecuted, the apostle can even say, “Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? ... Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised [?]” The believer is pre-emptively absolved by God’s embrace. It is just a matter of welcoming it. Nothing, in fact, except a decision made by our free will, can separate us from this love. The apostle enumerates a series of different, opposing realities and situations: death or life, angels or rulers, present or future, heights and depths and whatever other power might assail the believer. And indeed we believers often experience difficulties and opposition, even to the point of death. But none of this “will be able to separate us from the love of God.” This passage from the letter to the Romans concludes the central body of the letter (chapters 5-8) and demonstrates the complete unity of the plan of salvation shared by the Father and the Son. This plan of salvation has a name: love. And it is this word that best explains the future of God and humanity, as it does their past - the witness of Jesus’ gift on the cross.
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
