Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Luke 4, 14-22
Jesus, with the power of the Spirit in him, returned to Galilee; and his reputation spread throughout the countryside.
He taught in their synagogues and everyone glorified him.
He came to Nazara, where he had been brought up, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day as he usually did. He stood up to read,
and they handed him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll he found the place where it is written:
The spirit of the Lord is on me, for he has anointed me to bring the good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord.
He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the assistant and sat down. And all eyes in the synagogue were fixed on him.
Then he began to speak to them, 'This text is being fulfilled today even while you are listening.'
And he won the approval of all, and they were astonished by the gracious words that came from his lips. They said, 'This is Joseph's son, surely?'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Gospel we have heard begins with a notation of the evangelist, Jesus returns to Galilee “filled with the power of the Spirit.” Jesus’ pastoral mission starts here, in this peripheral region. And he starts it not prompted by a spirit of heroic protagonism, as can easily happen to us, though our protagonist mood is always more trivial and narrow. Jesus is led by the Spirit of the Father. He did not come to do his own will but the Father’s who sent him. And, with that Spirit, Jesus presents himself in the synagogue in Nazareth. It certainly was not the first time that Jesus had entered there; Luke underlines that he used to go there. It was the first time, however, that he went with that Spirit and expressed himself the way the evangelist describes. After reading the passage from Isaiah that announces the coming of the Messiah and the deeds of liberation he was to perform, Jesus, turning to those in the synagogue stood up and with the authority coming from the power of the Spirit said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” It is Jesus’ first preaching and it should be the icon of each preaching. Scriptures should be read and explained in the way that occurred in Nazareth. The reaction of those present was initially one of amazement and astonishment, but then they began to be troubled with that indispensable feeling that each preaching should cause, as it demands, that we change our hearts. The inhabitants of Nazareth refuse that his words reach their hearts. They stop it first with their unbelief, and so their initial amazement turns into hostility. They even think about killing this fellow citizen who dared asking their conversion of heart. It is a temptation that is not foreign to us. And we should be careful. What had happened? The Nazarenes did not want to accept that one of them, who they knew as a child and had seen grow up, could possibly speak with authority over their life and demand the change of their habits and convictions. We, too, may resist the Gospel; maybe justifying ourselves with the fact that we already know it or that it is beautiful but difficult to put into practice and so on. This attitude is not far from that of eth Nazarenes. It is our way to throw Jesus down the cliff. By doing so the “year of favour” that Jesus began to fulfil, that is the end of every oppression in our lives and in the world, delays in growth because of us.
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
