EVERYDAY PRAYER

Sunday Vigil
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Sunday Vigil
Saturday, August 3


Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Jeremiah 13, 15-27

Listen and pay attention, do not be proud: Yahweh is speaking!

Give glory to Yahweh your God before the darkness comes, before your feet stumble on the darkened mountains. You hope for light, but he will turn it to shadow dark as death, will change it to blackness.

If you do not listen to this warning, I shall weep in secret for your pride; my eyes will weep bitterly and stream with tears, for Yahweh's flock is being led into captivity.

Tell the king and the queen mother, 'Sit in a lower place, since your glorious crown has fallen from your head.

The towns of the Negeb are shut off with no one to give access to them. All Judah has been deported, deported wholesale.'

Raise your eyes and look at these now coming from the north. Where is the flock once entrusted to you, the flock which was your pride?

What will you say when they come and punish you, you yourself having taught them? Against you, in the lead, will come your friends. Then will not anguish grip you as it grips a woman in labour?

And should you ask yourself, 'Why is all this happening to me?' it is because of your great guilt that your skirts have been pulled up and you have been manhandled.

Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? And you, can you do right, being so accustomed to wrong?

'I shall scatter you like chaff on the desert wind.

This is your share, the part allotted you, from me, Yahweh declares, because you have forgotten me and put your trust in Delusion.

I am the one who pulls your skirts up over your face to let your shame be seen.

Oh! Your adulteries, your shrieks of pleasure, your vile prostitution! On the hills, in the fields, I have seen your Horrors. Jerusalem, disaster is coming for you! How much longer till you are made clean?'

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The crucial question addressed by God to his people resonates in verse 23: can you then who are accustomed to evil do good? Can we change our thoughts and actions when we have grown accustomed to always thinking and acting in the same way? The gravest risk in the life of each one of us is habituation to evil, the passive acceptance of events without understanding what is good and what is evil. The world accustoms us to accepting everything as normal, even the worst evil, injustice, and violence. Indeed, we have lost our sense of sin, and so we no longer rebel against evil. We can understand why the prophet insists on inviting us to listen: “Hear and give ear; do not be haughty, for the Lord has spoken.” We do not listen because of our pride and arrogance, which justify everything we feel. We prefer to analyze our behaviour, not confess our sin. We are no longer accustomed to recognizing the evil that is in us. And when we see it working outside of us, in society, in the life of an acquaintance or friend, we are surprised, we complain, and we even blame God. It is rare that we question ourselves. There is a power and a mystery of evil in everyday life, and we have to question ourselves about it in order to be ready when it touches us. Jeremiah speaks so that his people will not avoid this question. Yes, we can do good instead of evil only if we listen, if we accept correction, if we convert our hearts, and if we convert ourselves. “But if you will not listen, my soul will weep in secret for your pride; my eyes will weep bitterly and run down with tears, because the Lord’s flock has been taken captive.” God can only cry in front of our pride, because it takes us away from him and causes destruction and death. Let us entrust ourselves to the Lord, for only in His word can we find the life and happiness we seek.

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