EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of Jesus crucified
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of Jesus crucified
Friday, June 21


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

Hebrews 12, 1-11

With so many witnesses in a great cloud all around us, we too, then, should throw off everything that weighs us down and the sin that clings so closely, and with perseverance keep running in the race which lies ahead of us.

Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection: for the sake of the joy which lay ahead of him, he endured the cross, disregarding the shame of it, and has taken his seat at the right of God's throne.

Think of the way he persevered against such opposition from sinners and then you will not lose heart and come to grief.

In the fight against sin, you have not yet had to keep fighting to the point of bloodshed.

Have you forgotten that encouraging text in which you are addressed as sons? My son, do not scorn correction from the Lord, do not resent his training,

for the Lord trains those he loves, and chastises every son he accepts.

Perseverance is part of your training; God is treating you as his sons. Has there ever been any son whose father did not train him?

If you were not getting this training, as all of you are, then you would be not sons but bastards.

Besides, we have all had our human fathers who punished us, and we respected them for it; all the more readily ought we to submit to the Father of spirits, and so earn life.

Our human fathers were training us for a short life and according to their own lights; but he does it all for our own good, so that we may share his own holiness.

Of course, any discipline is at the time a matter for grief, not joy; but later, in those who have undergone it, it bears fruit in peace and uprightness.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

After narrating the long history of the witnesses of faith, the Letter turns directly to the community to exhort it not to feel alone: it is part of a long history of faith. Indeed, the community is “surrounded” by a “great cloud of witnesses” who support it, exhort it, and stimulate it to continue on the way of faith and of discipleship to Jesus. The author again takes up the image, dear to Paul, of a race, that Christians pursue with generosity in the fight for the faith. And, as happens in all races, it is necessary to put aside every burden, every obstacle of sin, and to keep one’s eyes fixed on the goal: Jesus, “the pioneer and perfector of faith.” Christians are called to imitate Christ. In this sense, one ever remains a disciple, that is, a believer who listens and who follows the Master in every season of life. The author makes it clear that following Jesus also involves the cross and therefore accepting opposition and threats in order to reach our heavenly home. Believers must never take their eyes off Jesus: “Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart” (12:3). The Gospel becomes the mirror in which Christians must face themselves every day: the Gospel and the world are always in opposition. Thus, the disciple is not less so than the Master. It is true, however, that we “have not yet resisted to the point of shedding [our] blood,” as happened to Jesus and to innumerable martyrs of the faith. The Letter is addressed to a community that perhaps is failing in the face of difficulties and opposition, and it suggests that the sufferings resulting from following the Gospel are not a condemnation; on the contrary, they are the sign of the Father’s correction through which one is purified. Discipleship always involves the sharpness of education, and therefore requires the intervention of the Lord to change our hearts and our behaviour. It is within this horizon that fraternal correction is to be understood: a difficult but nevertheless necessary art, although also too often disregarded. In fact, it calls for responsibility from those who must exercise it and bitterness for those who must receive it. But it is from the fatiguing effort of education and from that momentary displeasure through correction that serenity and peace mature and ripen.

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