Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I am the good shepherd,
my sheep listen to my voice,
and they become
one flock and one fold.
.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Jeremiah 31, 15-22
Yahweh says this: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamenting and weeping bitterly: it is Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.
Yahweh says this: Stop your lamenting dry your eyes, for your labour will have a reward, Yahweh declares, and they will return from the enemy's country.
There is hope for your future after all, Yahweh declares, your children will return to their homeland.
I have indeed heard Ephraim's grieving, 'You flogged me, I took a flogging, like a young, untrained bull. Bring me back, let me come back, for you are Yahweh my God!
For, since I turned away, I have repented; having understood, I beat my breast. I was deeply ashamed, I blushed, aware of the disgrace incurred when I was young.'
Is Ephraim, then, so dear a son to me, a child so favoured, that whenever I mention him I remember him lovingly still? That is why I yearn for him, why I must take pity on him, Yahweh declares.
Set up your signposts, raise yourself landmarks, fix your mind on the road, the way by which you went. Come home, Virgin of Israel, come home to these towns of yours.
How long will you hesitate, rebellious daughter? For Yahweh is creating something new on earth: the Woman sets out to find her Husband again.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Jeremiah is the prophet of God’s tenderness. He goes to find his people, whom he has always known and whom he loves with an everlasting love, a love that sometimes takes the form of a husband’s love (God, husband of Israel) and sometimes the form of a father’s love (God, the father of Israel). What is clear, however, is that the people of Israel do not walk alone on the paths of history. The Lord walks with them as a father and a husband. During the long journey through the desert to the land of Canaan, the people followed the cloud, the sure guide that gave everyone shelter, day and night. Even the children of the Gospel of Jesus enjoy the company of the Risen Lord and find in him a Teacher who walks in front of them, speaking to their hearts and giving them rest and peace. Faith is the response to God’s love for us: “You are the Lord my God” (v. 18). In their simplicity, these words reveal the most basic feeling, the prayer of a man or a woman who lives in friendship with the Lord. In them we can already hear the profession of faith the Apostle Thomas makes before the Risen Lord: “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28). But Jeremiah is the prophet of the people’s pain; the prophet of Rachel’s pain, the mother of Israel, who weeps over her children, either exiled or dead. How can we not see in this weeping the pain of so many women whose children have been seized or killed because of war, disease, or famine? This weeping does not leave the Lord indifferent. In fact, moved by mercy, he listens to the cries of his children and the poor. Once again, the psalmist sings, “For he delivers the needy when they call, the poor and those who have no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy” (Ps 72:12-13). There is hope for the pain of that woman, the pain of the many mothers in the world who still see their children killed; there is hope for the world’s sorrows: the love of a God who does not abandon his creatures. On this path, we will dry the tears of the many men and women who have been wounded by pain.
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
