Thanksgiving to the Lord for the past year
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
John 1, 1-18
In the beginning was the Word: the Word was with God and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things came into being, not one thing came into being except through him.
What has come into being in him was life, life that was the light of men;
and light shines in darkness, and darkness could not overpower it.
A man came, sent by God. His name was John.
He came as a witness, to bear witness to the light, so that everyone might believe through him.
He was not the light, he was to bear witness to the light.
The Word was the real light that gives light to everyone; he was coming into the world.
He was in the world that had come into being through him, and the world did not recognise him.
He came to his own and his own people did not accept him.
But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believed in his name
who were born not from human stock or human desire or human will but from God himself.
The Word became flesh, he lived among us, and we saw his glory, the glory that he has from the Father as only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John witnesses to him. He proclaims: 'This is the one of whom I said: He who comes after me has passed ahead of me because he existed before me.'
Indeed, from his fullness we have, all of us, received -- one gift replacing another,
for the Law was given through Moses, grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
At the end of the solar year the liturgy proclaims the prologue of John’s Gospel. The “Word,” is made flesh. The evangelist affirms that this Word has left the heavens and has come to live among us. We could say with great strength that the Word that lives in the heavens came to earth so that we would listen, and driven by the strength from which it comes even we can rise to the heavens where it lives forever. It is the mystery that fills the holy pages of Scripture. We know that the Bible is not the Word of God, but it contains it in an extraordinary way so that each of us can encounter it and welcome it into our hearts. We could say that God gave us the Word, His word. It’s up to us to welcome it, and in a certain way, return it. The Bible is the “sacrament” of the Word. When it is read and proclaimed in the Holy Liturgy it is God himself who turns in a direct and understandable way to all of us. The entire Bible was written so that we could touch with our hands the mystery of God’s love. Unfortunatelyand the evangelist reminds ussuch love is not always welcomed by men and women: the Word was light, and yet men and women have preferred the darkness; the Word came among us, but they did not welcome it. It is the mystery of evil that envelops even our lives and that requires vigilance and attention from each of us so that it does not prevail. The book of Genesis, right at the beginning, describes some God’s words to Cain: “If you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it” (Genesis 4:7). Woe if we let him enter. If we did he would close the door to anyone else. If instead we open wide our hearts to the Word of God we will become His children. In the day of Christmas the first page of the Gospel was proclaimed to us; today we hear it again. It is the invitation to open the Gospel day after day, page after page. And so doing we will grow in the knowledge and love of the Lord. The Gospel must become flesh in our lives. Knowing the Gospel is the best way to thank the Lord for his continuous love for us. While it closes the days of the solar year, this first page of John’s Gospel helps us to understand that the true sun--the true light that never goes down--is Jesus. It is that word that has come down from heaven and that does not cease to give light to the steps of those who welcome him.
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
