EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Church
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Church
Thursday, April 18


Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

I am the good shepherd,
my sheep listen to my voice,
and they become
one flock and one fold.
.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

2 Corinthians 8, 16-24; 9,1-5

Thank God for putting into Titus' heart the same sincere concern for you.

He certainly took our urging to heart; but greater still was his own enthusiasm, and he went off to you of his own accord.

We have sent with him the brother who is praised as an evangelist in all the churches

and who, what is more, was elected by the churches to be our travelling companion in this work of generosity, a work to be administered by us for the glory of the Lord and our complete satisfaction.

We arranged it this way so that no one should be able to make any accusation against us about this large sum we are administering.

And so we have been careful to do right not only in the sight of the Lord but also in the sight of people.

Along with these, we have sent a brother of ours whose eagerness we have tested over and over again in many ways and who is now all the more eager because he has so much faith in you.

If Titus is in question -- he is my own partner and fellow-worker in your interests; and if our brothers -- they are the emissaries of the churches and the glory of Christ.

So then, in full view of all the churches, give proof that you love them, and that we were right to boast of you to them.

About the help to God's holy people, there is really no need for me to write to you;

for I am well aware of your enthusiasm, and I have been boasting of it to the Macedonians that 'Achaia has been ready for a year'; your enthusiasm has been a spur to many others.

All the same, I have sent the brothers, to make sure that our boast about you may not prove hollow in this respect and that you may be ready, as I said you would be;

so that if by chance some of the Macedonians came with me and found you unprepared we -- to say nothing of yourselves -- would not be put to shame by our confidence in you.

So I have thought it necessary to encourage the brothers to go to you ahead of us and make sure in advance of the gift that you have already promised, so that it is all at hand as a real gift and not an imposition.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Paul wants to send Titus to Corinth with other companions so that they may care about the life of that Christian community. Titus has willingly accepted the assignment and Paul is pleased. He also sends two other “brothers,” who are not named, to accompany Titus in collecting aid. It is a small group who will try to send a substantial collection to the mother Church of Jerusalem. The apostle attaches great importance to this work. He knows well that in fact there is no true fraternity, there is no true com¬munion, if there is no corresponding concrete mutual help. The Letter of James is also explicit in this regard: “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? [So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.]” (James 2.15-16). Not by chance does Paul speak of this collection as a “service in favour of the saints.” Solidarity among the disciples is itself holy, and renders holy those who practise it. The exhortation of the apostle, which shows so clearly the importance of links between the different communities, should be lived and accepted with great readiness in Christian communities at the beginning of this new millennium. Globalisation, which has brought the disciples of Jesus to communicate the Gospel in every part of the world, must impel the Christian community towards a globalisation of solidarity among all. And attention should be turned especially towards those communities which live in situations of greater difficulty. Paul exhorts the Corinthians explicitly to overcome every temptation of avarice. That is why, besides Titus, he has sent others “so that it may be ready as a voluntary gift and not as an extortion” (v. 5). Their gift will be like a seed of generosity that will bring an abundant harvest of love in the entire community.

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