Reading of the Word of God
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
2 Corinthians 1, 1-11
Paul, by the will of God an apostle of Christ Jesus, and Timothy, our brother, to the church of God in Corinth and to all God's holy people in the whole of Achaia.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the merciful Father and the God who gives every possible encouragement;
he supports us in every hardship, so that we are able to come to the support of others, in every hardship of theirs because of the encouragement that we ourselves receive from God.
For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow into our lives; so too does the encouragement we receive through Christ.
So if we have hardships to undergo, this will contribute to your encouragement and your salvation; if we receive encouragement, this is to gain for you the encouragement which enables you to bear with perseverance the same sufferings as we do.
So our hope for you is secure in the knowledge that you share the encouragement we receive, no less than the sufferings we bear.
So in the hardships we underwent in Asia, we want you to be quite certain, brothers, that we were under extraordinary pressure, beyond our powers of endurance, so that we gave up all hope even of surviving.
In fact we were carrying the sentence of death within our own selves, so that we should be forced to trust not in ourselves but in God, who raises the dead.
He did save us from such a death and will save us -- we are relying on him to do so.
Your prayer for us will contribute to this, so that, for God's favour shown to us as the result of the prayers of so many, thanks too may be given by many on our behalf.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Paul again is writing to the “church of God that is in Corinth” and to all the “saints,” the Christians who live in Achaia, in the central regions of modern-day Greece. The apostle is not afraid to call the Christians and the entire Church “saints.” He knows that everyone is a sinner, but the sanctity of the Church comes from on high, from God. It is the Lord who calls and gathers sinners to bring them out of sin and death. That is why Paul’s first words are a hymn of thanksgiving and praise for all that God has done, both in the life of the Church and his life. It is the God of consolation to whom Paul is giving thanks. He gives him thanks because he can pour the consolation with which he has been consoled in the community of Corinth. Paul does not hide the difficulties he faces because of the Gospel. He even speaks of mortal danger. We do not understand what he is referring to, but he certainly thought that the end had come. Nonetheless, the apostle confesses his firm faith in the Lord, whom he feels he has been made similar to in his affliction, and he blesses God the Father, who does not deny him comfort and consolation in the moments of pain. The apostle reveals to the Corinthians that it is precisely in his affliction that he has learned not to put his trust in himself but instead in the power of a God who raises the dead. The solidity of our faith does not, in fact, rest on our strength or our abilities, but only on the certainty that God loves us and that his saving work will never end. Paul asks the Corinthians to participate in his suffering, as well as in his consolation. This is the meaning of Christian fraternity, which pushes us to carry each other’s loads just as we rejoice in each other’s joys. He asks for the help of prayer: “You also join in helping us by your prayers, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted to us through the prayers of many” (v. 11). Prayer for one another, which always becomes thanksgiving to the Lord, is among the most beautiful and strongest manifestations of love.
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
