Memorial of Laurindo and Madora, young Mozambicans who died because of the war. With them we remember all of the young people killed because of conflict and the violence of humanity Read more
Memorial of Laurindo and Madora, young Mozambicans who died because of the war. With them we remember all of the young people killed because of conflict and the violence of humanity
Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Glory to God in the highest
and peace on earth to the people he loves.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Luke 2, 36-40
There was a prophetess, too, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was well on in years. Her days of girlhood over, she had been married for seven years
before becoming a widow. She was now eighty-four years old and never left the Temple, serving God night and day with fasting and prayer.
She came up just at that moment and began to praise God; and she spoke of the child to all who looked forward to the deliverance of Jerusalem.
When they had done everything the Law of the Lord required, they went back to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.
And as the child grew to maturity, he was filled with wisdom; and God's favour was with him.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
After having us contemplate the extraordinary encounter between Simeon and the baby Jesus, the Gospel of Luke gives us another encounter with the old prophetess Anna. She was an 84-year-old woman. She is spending what time she has left inside the temple. And we could say that for her that was nothing left to do but continue her days in the same way, until she reached death. In truth the encounter with this Child changes her life. If Simeon sang his canticle (the “Nunc Dimittis”) Anna instead receives a new energy, a new vocation, a new mission. Her years were no longer a weight to her, her old age no longer a shipwreck: she became the first preacher of the Gospel. Truly, nothing is impossible with God. Anna is an example for all of us: life changes if we truly meet Jesus. The years don’t count what we have done up until that point does not count. The only thing that counts is allowing the Lord to touch our hearts. What happened to Anna should make us think. Our communities, which often conform to the contemporary mentality and put the elderly apart, are questioned by this Gospel in order that they might help these older brothers and sisters discover the task that the Lord has given to them, perhaps only through prayer and the word. This woman “praised God,” or in other words, she prayed, and “she spoke of the child,” that is, she communicated the Gospel. The evangelist closes with a phrase that describes the return of Mary, Joseph and Jesus to Nazareth. And in three lines, worth thirty years, he summarizes the long “hidden life” of Jesus. We, who are ill with self-centeredness, should ask ourselves why Jesus does not begin his pastoral action immediately with signs and wonders. It is what in ancient times the apocryphal gospels tried to say, with the descriptions of Jesus’ childhood filled with miracles during his early years. The Church does not hold them to be true. The truth is otherwise. Jesus made himself “like men,” sings the hymn of Paul to the Philippians, so that salvation would not be something outside of everyday life. In Nazareth there are no miracles, no visions, nor do the crowds follow him. This brief sentence of the Gospel is like a summary of thirty years of ordinary life-- Jesus’ and ours. Yes, even we, in the ordinariness of our days, we must “grow and become strong, filled with wisdom; and under the favour of God,” exactly as Jesus did. And we will grow to the extent which, every day, we read page after page of the Gospel, trying to put it into practice.
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
