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
Luke 1, 39-47
Mary set out at that time and went as quickly as she could into the hill country to a town in Judah.
She went into Zechariah's house and greeted Elizabeth.
Now it happened that as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
She gave a loud cry and said, 'Of all women you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
Why should I be honoured with a visit from the mother of my Lord?
Look, the moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leapt for joy.
Yes, blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.'
And Mary said: My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour;
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Today the liturgical calendar commemorates the Blessed Virgin Mary, our Queen. We could say that in a sense that this completes the Feast of the Assumption, celebrated on August 15. It is, in any case, the same mystery that envelopes the Mother of Jesus. The Second Vatican Council writes, “Finally the Immaculate Virgin...when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death.” This is truly a great mystery, because it not only opens up to us the future towards which we are journeying, but it gives us a Mother who continues to stand before our eyes as a sign of the boundless mercy of God. The Gospel of the Visitation to Elizabeth shows us how quickly Mary responded to the Lord, practicing the mercy that she had first received. Luke writes that Mary, after being told by the angel that Elizabeth was pregnant, immediately runs to her. She went “with haste,” the evangelist writes. The Gospel always makes us hurry, pushing us to leave behind our habits, our private concerns, and our thoughts. And how many thoughts Mary must have had then, after the Word of God had completely turned her life upside down! The Gospel makes us get up and drives us to be close to those who suffer or who are in any kind of need, like the elderly Elizabeth, who was facing a difficult pregnancy. As soon as she sees the young Mary enter her house, she rejoices profoundly, to her very womb. It is the joy that the weak and the poor experience when they are visited by the “servants” of the Lord, who “believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to [them] by the Lord.” The Word of God creates a new alliance in the world, an unusual alliance, between the disciples of the Gospel and the poor.
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
