Reading of the Word of God
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
2 Corinthians 1, 12-24
There is one thing that we are proud of, namely our conscientious conviction that we have always behaved towards everyone, and especially towards you, with that unalloyed holiness that comes from God, relying not on human reasoning but on the grace of God.
In our writing, there is nothing that you cannot read clearly and understand;
and it is my hope that, just as you have already understood us partially, so you will understand fully that you can be as proud of us as we shall be of you when the Day of our Lord Jesus comes.
It was with this assurance that I had been meaning to come to you first, so that you would benefit doubly;
both to visit you on my way to Macedonia, and then to return to you again from Macedonia, so that you could set me on my way to Judaea.
Since that was my purpose, do you think I lightly changed my mind? Or that my plans are based on ordinary human promptings and I have in my mind Yes, yes at the same time as No, no?
As surely as God is trustworthy, what we say to you is not both Yes and No.
The Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was proclaimed to you by us, that is, by me and by Silvanus and Timothy, was never Yes-and-No; his nature is all Yes.
For in him is found the Yes to all God's promises and therefore it is 'through him' that we answer 'Amen' to give praise to God.
It is God who gives us, with you, a sure place in Christ
and has both anointed us and marked us with his seal, giving us as pledge the Spirit in our hearts.
By my life I call on God to be my witness that it was only to spare you that I did not come to Corinth again.
We have no wish to lord it over your faith, but to work with you for your joy; for your stand in the faith is firm.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
After the first four chapters, which form an extended introduction to the letter, Paul now responds to several issues concerning the life of the community. We can see from the apostle’s words how strong his bond was to the community of Corinth. He decisively takes on the case of incest that had occurred in the community and needed to be resolved. This passage leads us to rediscover our responsibility to correct our brothers and sisters, something that is often disregarded, whether for laziness or disinterest. Correction requires us to take on the responsibility of fraternity. It requires long and patient “work” which does not exclude harshness to try to change the heart of the one who has erred and to preserve the growth of the community. The gravity of the sin, as in this case, requires an equally grave decision in order to uproot the danger. But none of this is possible without love, paternal love. Unfortunately, we are sometimes guided by coldness or, worse, indifference. And so we become disinterested in our brothers and sisters. The apostle Paul teaches us to think about the salvation of those who have been stained with serious sins. The harsh judgment about the sinner was made “so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord” (v. 5). Paul’s first words are a reproach because this weed was not pulled up quickly and sternly; instead, the community contented itself with a few words of blame. According to the apostle, the community is responsible for the holiness of all it members: therefore, it is its responsibility the responsibility of the whole community and of each individual member to fraternally correct the brothers and sisters in order to drive out evil and build the one body of the Lord according to the spirit of the Gospel. This is the meaning of the fraternal correction that we read about in the Gospel and that reveals concrete solidarity among the members of the one family of God.
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
