Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.
The child you shall bear will be holy.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Jeremiah 22, 1-12
Yahweh said this, 'Go down to the palace of the king of Judah and there say this word,
"Listen to the word of Yahweh, king of Judah now occupying the throne of David, you, your officials and your people who go through these gates.
Yahweh says this: Act uprightly and justly; rescue from the hands of the oppressor anyone who has been wronged, do not exploit or ill-treat the stranger, the orphan, the widow; shed no innocent blood in this place.
For if you are scrupulous in obeying this command, then kings occupying the throne of David will continue to make their entry through the gates of this palace riding in chariots or on horseback, they, their officials and their people.
But if you do not listen to these words, then I swear by myself, Yahweh declares, this palace shall become a ruin!
"Yes, this is what Yahweh says about the palace of the king of Judah: You are like Gilead to me, like a peak of Lebanon. All the same, I will reduce you to a desert, to uninhabited towns.
I dedicate men to destroy you, each man with his weapons; they will cut down your finest cedars and throw them on the fire.
"And when many nations pass this city, they will say to one another: Why has Yahweh treated this great city like this?
And the answer will be: Because they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh their God to worship other gods and serve them." '
Do not weep for the man who is dead, do not raise the dirge for him. Weep rather for the one who has gone away, since he will never come back, never see his native land again.
For this is what Yahweh has said about Shallum son of Josiah, king of Judah, who succeeded Josiah his father and was forced to leave this place, 'He will never come back to it
but will die in the place to which he has been taken captive; and he will never see this country again.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
From the words of the prophets emerges a constant invitation to the king, the judges, and all those who exercise power to practice justice, especially towards the poor. The story of Naboth’s vineyard, where the prophet Elijah accuses Ahab of a great injustice, is one example among many (1 K 21). There is sometimes real conflict between the prophet and the king about justice for the poor. In the ancient Near East one of the main responsibilities of the king was to defend the rights of the weakest members of society, although this was rarely carried out. This had already been proclaimed in the great legal code, such as Hammurabi’s. This explains why the prophets insist on defending the oppressed. Jeremiah is no exception. The foreigner, the orphan, and the widow are considered to be among the poorest people, because they had no land and were completely dependent on the hospitality and generosity of others. The Bible is often concerned with their frail condition. Laws were already established to defend them in the book of Exodus (22:20-21): “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien...You shall not abuse any widow or orphan.” The king’s house should be a place where the rights of the poor are defended. It is not just a mater of giving something to the poor; the poor have rights that must be respected. Because of their condition, the poor have a right to special care, and everyone, starting with the king, is bound to respect it. In every society the protection of the rights of the poor and the weak is not only a sign of civility, it is what guarantees a peaceful coexistence. For Christians, the defence of the poor is not just a matter of the justice we cannot refuse, nor is it something optional that we can leave to the professionals. It is an essential part of our faith life and the heart of our encounter with Jesus, who identified himself with the poor, as is written in Matthew 25: “Just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”
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
