EVERYDAY PRAYER

Liturgy of the Sunday
Word of god every day

Liturgy of the Sunday

Twenty-seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time Read more

Libretto DEL GIORNO
Liturgy of the Sunday
Sunday, October 6

Homily

“O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise” (v. 2-3). These are the words which begin the dialogue between the prophet Habakkuk and God. We know nothing of this prophet. He presents himself as a cold sceptic, who, in his usual dialogue with God in the temple, dares to call him into account, to ask him to explain the behaviour of the Most High when he punishes one evildoer with an even worse one (the evildoer for the prophet is the Assyrian empire, and the worse one is the neo-Babylonian empire).
The situation that appears before the eyes of the prophet is marked by disgrace, grief, violence, hostility, and contention; God seems not to notice, as if he is impotent or distracted. And yet, it is about his people who are living through bitter slavery! The prophet asks himself, “how long” will this situation last? And if God responds that he will punish one evildoer by means of another, a worse one, the prophet asks, why? Wouldn’t that mean instigating a cruel chain of events that pits one people against another people? The prophet seems to challenge God to give him a response; he will stand as a witness and sentinel at his post until God responds.
The response comes. God speaks to the prophet, and through him, to all people, “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that the runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time… If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay” (v. 2:2-3). “Look at the proud,” continues the text, “Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith” (v. 4), that is, their lives will be saved through trust in God. In the questions of the prophet Habakkuk are gathered the many questions of our own times, in particular those that relate to the situations of countries near our own and of many other countries in the vast world of the poor.
The prophet says that the one who does not have an upright heart will succumb, but the just one will live by faith. Before all that happens, every believer is urgently called to rediscover the radicality of his or her own faith. We are not speaking here on the level of particular, partial choices, subject to the historical contingencies of the moment. What is at issue is the deeper meaning of life and of personal choices – social and also political. What is at stake is the deeper reasoning that underlies each individual concrete choice, and is tightly linked to the gift of faith. The apostle Paul reminds Timothy (in the second letter) to “rekindle the gift” which has been given to him; he adds that the gift is not “a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline” (2 Tim 1:7). Paul describes the person of faith in this way: it is the choice of the person who wants to live looking, above all, at the Lord. The person of faith is not timid or ashamed, but is firm and courageous in testifying, as Paul himself does in writing to Timothy.
The Gospel of Luke (17:5-10) opens with the prayer of the apostles to Jesus, “Increase our faith!” It is perhaps the prayer that all of us must make in these times. We will hear the response of Jesus, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you” (v. 6). There is no need for a great faith, Jesus seems to say. It is enough to have even a small faith, so long as there is faith, that is trust in God more than in any other thing (career, money, party, clan, oneself). Of this type of faith merely a “grain” is enough; it is enough to move even mountains. The proof is indicated in the final phrase of the gospel passage, “When you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, “We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done” (v. 10). The disciple is called to do his or her duty to completion and at the end to say, “We are worthless slaves.” For us, accustomed to claiming merits and recognition, these words sound strange indeed. But it is precisely on these that we can base our trust in a new future.

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