Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Colossians 2, 6-15
So then, as you received Jesus as Lord and Christ, now live your lives in him,
be rooted in him and built up on him, held firm by the faith you have been taught, and overflowing with thanksgiving.
Make sure that no one captivates you with the empty lure of a 'philosophy' of the kind that human beings hand on, based on the principles of this world and not on Christ.
In him, in bodily form, lives divinity in all its fullness,
and in him you too find your own fulfilment, in the one who is the head of every sovereignty and ruling force.
In him you have been circumcised, with a circumcision performed, not by human hand, but by the complete stripping of your natural self. This is circumcision according to Christ.
You have been buried with him by your baptism; by which, too, you have been raised up with him through your belief in the power of God who raised him from the dead.
You were dead, because you were sinners and uncircumcised in body: he has brought you to life with him, he has forgiven us every one of our sins.
He has wiped out the record of our debt to the Law, which stood against us; he has destroyed it by nailing it to the cross;
and he has stripped the sovereignties and the ruling forces, and paraded them in public, behind him in his triumphal procession.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The apostle does not stop urging the Colossians to persevere on the path they have begun to follow, a path taught to them by the preaching of the Word of God. Indeed, it is from the preaching of the Gospel that faith flows, that is, the welcoming of the lordship of Christ over one’s own life. In effect, listening to the Gospel and welcoming it in our heart means recognizes the lordship of the Word over our lives. The believer is the one who welcomes Christ as his or her Lord. This faith is the foundation on which the community was founded and continues to grow. Seeing the danger that threatens the Colossians, Paul reminds them of the need to “build up the faith”, that is, to reinforce their belonging to Christ. They need to abandon every compromise with the “philosophy” that distances them from the Gospel they have received, that is, those visions of the world and of life that effectively negate the sovereignty of the Risen One. Following those deceitful paths means losing the liberty of Christ. Therefore we can make no compromises with the selfish and conflict-filled culture of this world. In fact, there is a radical dimension of following Christ that cannot be eliminated from the life of a disciple: only in Christ “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (2:9). No one else can claim this primacy, because “you have come to fullness in him” (2:10). In order to describe this new belonging to Christ, Paul compares baptism to circumcision: those who are baptised put off the clothing of the “body of the flesh”, that is, of the “old self” (cf. 3:9) and receive the “circumcision of Christ.” With the death of the Son, the Father cancelled our sin and freely pardoned us. The debt which we had with God was overwhelming, but with baptism it was wiped out. We could say that all we had to do was to present to God the record of our debts, the long list of our sins. And the Lord erased this list by “nailing it to the cross.” Through Jesus’ death on the cross, the Father removed the obstacle which was keeping us from standing in his presence. Christ’s death reveals God’s love in all of its grandeur, including the grandeur of eliminating all debt. It is a love that has disarmed the forces of evil: they can no longer strike the believer because he or she now belongs to his or her Lord.
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
