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 4, 2-6
Be persevering in your prayers and be thankful as you stay awake to pray.
Pray for us especially, asking God to throw open a door for us to announce the message and proclaim the mystery of Christ, for the sake of which I am in chains;
pray that I may proclaim it as clearly as I ought.
Act wisely with outsiders, making the best of the present time.
Always talk pleasantly and with a flavour of wit but be sensitive to the kind of answer each one requires.
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 exhorts the Colossians to persevere in prayer without ever tiring. This is a constant teaching in the New Testament. Prayer frees believers from their selfishness and connects them to God. Prayer is their first work, the one which defines them and best describes them. The apostle emphasizes the strength of prayer, because it solidifies believers’ vigilance. At the time when the Letter to the Colossians was written, the certainty that the glorified Christ would soon appear was not as strong as it had been, and the need to wait risked leading to feelings of lazy resignation about the events of the world. By urging his readers to be alert, Paul is trying to instil in them perseverance in listening to the Gospel and putting it into practice. He adds a request for prayers for himself and his companions, that they might successfully complete their mission in service of the Word. The Apostle knows that the time of waiting must be guided by the preaching of the Gospel. He asks for prayers because it is God who will “open to us a door for the word,” that is, grant a favourable occasion for proclaiming the Gospel. We need to pray for those who have the responsibility of preaching, that they might recognize the opportune moment. At the beginning of the letter, it was the apostle who assured the believers of his prayers (1:3-9). Now he asks for them for himself. Reciprocal prayer reveals fraternal communion: we all meet each other in the Father’s heart. The apostle is in prison, but the chains cannot contain the strength of the Gospel’s words. He sees the “outsiders” before his eyes, those who do not yet belong to the Christian community. The Gospel needs to be communicated to them too. Paul knows that the Christians of Colossae are a minority in the city. Consequently, they need to give an account of their faith with the testimony of their lives, by behaving wisely. It is an invitation to live according to the Gospel. This is Christians’ strength: to respond to everyone with amiability and without losing patience, “with salt”, with the wisdom that makes disciples the “salt of earth and light of the world.”
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
