EVERYDAY PRAYER

Prayer of the Christmas season
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Prayer of the Christmas season
Friday, January 3


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, 29-34

The next day, he saw Jesus coming towards him and said, 'Look, there is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

It was of him that I said, "Behind me comes one who has passed ahead of me because he existed before me."

I did not know him myself, and yet my purpose in coming to baptise with water was so that he might be revealed to Israel.'

And John declared, 'I saw the Spirit come down on him like a dove from heaven and rest on him.

I did not know him myself, but he who sent me to baptise with water had said to me, "The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and rest is the one who is to baptise with the Holy Spirit."

I have seen and I testify that he is the Chosen One of God.'

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The Gospel continues to guide our steps along the road that Jesus travelled. He is not a child anymore. This passage from John presents him at the beginning of his public pastoral activity, at his baptism. The Baptist is on the banks of the Jordan preaching a baptism of repentance. At a certain point - “the day after” says the evangelist, as if to emphasize the newness of what is happening - the Baptist sees Jesus coming toward him. And he feels his heart leap. He recognizes him - it is the Messiah. Even without having met him before - even though he was preparing the way for him with his words and his baptism of repentance - he realizes who is standing before him. He had hoped to meet him. And the moment had finally arrived. So it had been for the old man Simeon. In truth - and this is made even clearer in this passage of the Gospel - it is Jesus who goes to meet the Baptist, just as he comes to meet each one of us. John tells the crowd frankly, “I myself did not know him.” This statement might seem hard to believe, because they are presented in the Gospel as relatives of the same age. But it is certainly true that John did not know the true face of Jesus: the face of the Messiah, the saviour. Now, having completed his inner journey by practicing penance and listening, he recognizes him and gives witness to him: “Here is the Lamb of God.” What the Baptist is experiencing in this moment is the same religious experience shared by every disciple of Jesus. In everyone’s life, no matter whether rich or poor, there is a moment in which we recognize and love the Lord whom we had not known. But this moment when we open our eyes is the result of an interior journey that consists on one hand of struggling against our pride and sense of self-sufficiency and on the other of listening to Scripture, praying in community and by ourselves, practicing love for the poor, and being helped by a brother or sister who convincingly witnesses to God’s paternity over us. Those who persevere on this path in search of the Lord will reach the moment when the eyes of their hearts open and they recognize Jesus as the Lord of their lives. And like the Baptist, they will testify to him before many.

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