Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Hebrews 3, 1-6
That is why all you who are holy brothers and share the same heavenly call should turn your minds to Jesus, the apostle and the high priest of our profession of faith.
He was trustworthy to the one who appointed him, just like Moses, who remained trustworthy in all his household;
but he deserves a greater glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house is more honoured than the house itself.
Every house is built by someone, of course; but God built everything that exists.
It is true that Moses was trustworthy in the household of God, as a servant is, acting as witness to the things which were yet to be revealed,
but Christ is trustworthy as a son is, over his household. And we are his household, as long as we fearlessly maintain the hope in which we glory.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The author of the Letter turns, for the first time, in a direct manner to those to whom he is writing and exhorts them not to forget that they are participants in a “heavenly calling,” and therefore he invites them to hold their gaze fixed on Jesus: “the apostle and high priest of our confession.” Jesus, as an “apostle,” that is, as a “messenger of God”, communicates in an authoritative manner the Word of God and is therefore “worthy of belief”. It is a reference evident to Christians so that they consider Jesus as the one who continues to speak with authority to their lives and to bring them together in a community of worship and prayer of which he is the High Priest. In fact it will be said later in the Letter Jesus is “the one who speaks from heaven” (12:25), namely, the one who continues to speak to his disciples with the strength and the power that come, in fact, from heaven. And likewise the “high priest” carries to God the common “confession” of faith of the believers (13:15). The author then compares Jesus to Moses to underline that Christians should not conceive themselves in an individualistic manner and as separated from each other, but as the “house of God,” a title which designated the people of Israel as a community of prayer and worship. Christians have received this heritage and have become themselves the home that God has prepared, “we are his house” (3:6), as long as we remain faithful to our vocation like Christ with the Father. Jesus is the foundation of the new house, the Christian community understood as a place of prayer and worship directed to God. We no longer have need of the mediation of Moses, whom God had made his servant. Through the Son, we have direct access to the Father; no more servants like Moses, but children in Jesus. He had said to his disciples, “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father” (Jn 15:15). The author does not fail to warn that the fidelity to the Gospel wavers when one “neglects to meet together” (10:25), when one is not united to the community that prays, listens, celebrates, and loves. Distance from the life of the community means being distant from Christ himself. On the contrary, communion with our brothers and sisters is born and grows with that which we have with Jesus. It is obvious that it is not a matter of mere physical participation in the life of the community, because decisive is one’s heart. But it is equally true that without physical proximity to the life of the community, to its vocation, to its spirit, to its joys and to its concerns, it is difficult to also live in communion with Jesus.
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
