Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a people acquired by God
to proclaim his marvellous works.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Jeremiah 9, 1-15
Who will find me a wayfarer's shelter in the desert, for me to quit my people, and leave them far behind? For all of them are adulterers, a conspiracy of traitors.
They bend their tongues like a bow; not truth but falsehood holds sway in the land; yes, they go from crime to crime, but me they do not know, Yahweh declares.
Let each be on his guard against his friend; do not trust a brother, for every brother aims but to supplant, and every friend is a peddler of slander.
Each one cheats his friend, never telling the truth; they have trained their tongues to lie and devote all their energies to doing wrong.
You live in a world of bad faith! Out of bad faith, they refuse to know me, Yahweh declares.
And, so, Yahweh Sabaoth declares, now I shall purge them and test them, no other way to treat the daughter of my people!
Their tongue is a deadly arrow, their words are in bad faith; with his mouth each wishes his neighbour peace, while in his heart plotting a trap for him.
Shall I fail to punish them for this, Yahweh demands, or on such a nation fail to exact vengeance?
I raise the wail and lament for the mountains, the dirge for the desert pastures, for they have been burnt: no one passes there, the sound of flocks is heard no more. Birds of the sky and animals, all have fled, all are gone.
I shall make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a lair for jackals, and the towns of Judah an uninhabited wasteland.
Who is wise enough to understand this? To whom has Yahweh's mouth spoken to explain it? Why is the country annihilated, burnt like the desert where no one passes?
Yahweh says, 'This is because they have forsaken my Law which I gave them and have not listened to my voice or followed it,
but have followed their own stubborn hearts, have followed the Baals as their ancestors taught them.'
So Yahweh Sabaoth, the God of Israel, says this, 'Now I shall give this people wormwood to eat and poisoned water to drink.
I shall scatter them among nations unknown to their ancestors or to them; and I shall pursue them with the sword until I have annihilated them.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Even God himself looses patience and wants to leave because of his people’s unfaithfulness: “O that I had in the desert a traveller’s lodging-place, that I might leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, a band of traitors.” The Bible sometimes speaks of God as being hidden. He hides his face and can no longer be seen. The main reason why God does this is that his people are telling lies: “They bend their tongues like bows; they have grown strong in the land for falsehood, and not for truth...they have taught their tongues to speak lies...deceit upon deceit!” These words draw our attention to the use of the tongue, speaking, and sincerity of our words. In the Letter of James, the entire third chapter is dedicated to the use of the tongue, using harsh words to define it: “the tongue is a fire...a world of iniquity.” The words of Jeremiah are no different: Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaks deceit through the mouth.” The words we speak can do great evil, because, once said, they bite and are truly like fire or arrows. They can do good, but also great evil. Lies in particular cause great evil, and they habituate us to a double life, distorted and full of malevolence, even if covered with superficial goodness. But that is only trickery. “Let your word be Yes, Yes’ or No, No’,” Jesus says. This is why God intervenes and purifies: “I will now refine and test them.” God refines and tests us so that we can purify our speaking and, by extension, our heart, and express sincerity and truth. The prophet returns to one of his favourite themes: Why is there so much devastation, and why does God seem so distant? “[They] have not obeyed my voice, or walked in accordance with it, but have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals (the gods of the lands of Canaan), as their ancestors taught them.” We are brought back to the same point: if we do not listen, everything falls to ruin, and our words turn to lies, because they are not nourished by the word of God.
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
