Prayer for the unity of the Churches. Particular memory of the ancient Churches of the Orient (Syrian Orthodox, Coptic, Armenian, Assyrian) Read more
Prayer for the unity of the Churches. Particular memory of the ancient Churches of the Orient (Syrian Orthodox, Coptic, Armenian, Assyrian)
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
Mark 2, 18-22
John's disciples and the Pharisees were keeping a fast, when some people came to him and said to him, 'Why is it that John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?'
Jesus replied, 'Surely the bridegroom's attendants cannot fast while the bridegroom is still with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.
But the time will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then, on that day, they will fast.
No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and the tear gets worse.
And nobody puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins too. No! New wine into fresh skins!'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The evangelist speaks of the disciples of John the Baptist and of the Pharisees who were fasting as part of a non-mandatory prescription (for otherwise, Jesus would observe it). This voluntary practice allowed them to present themselves as exemplary religious people. And, as it always happens to those who consider themselves right, they felt entitled to turn even to Jesus to ask him the reason why his disciples were not observing this pious practice that, although not mandatory, elevated the spirit. Their criticism, in truth, is directed more to the teacher that the disciples. With a parabolic language, Jesus answers that it is not the external practices that make the heart pure and the life of men limpid. Jesus continues saying that the pure are those who welcome the Messiah as one welcomes the bridegroom. Jesus meant that he was the groom. And when the friends of the groom wait for him to celebrate him in festivity, they cannot fast. Fasting would be sees as inappropriate by the groom, who expects to be welcomed with a celebration, and certainly not with the sadness of fasting. However, he emphasizes that even the friends of the bridegroom will go through difficult times, especially when the bridegroom will be taken away from them. In this manner, Jesus foretells, albeit covertly, his passion and his death. It is then that the moments of fasting, or rather of suffering, will come; and so indeed it happened from then to the present day with the long line of disciples who have given their lives until shedding blood. With two images, Jesus makes it clear that the spirit of discipleship does not agree with the formal rigidity of religious and ascetic practices that do not change the heart and are devoid of love. The old clothes and old wineskins indicate that an external piety never changes the heart or the behaviours. The stubborn persistence, which does not seek to extend beyond oneself, creates a barrier to the deep changes that the life according to the Gospel would bring. Jesus wants to reiterate that the salvation and the resulting bliss reside in a good heart, ready to receive the word that makes us new, beyond the external practices. How many mistakes we do when we entrust our lives to exteriority! The Gospel is the new wine that calls for and makes new hearts to receive it. The heart full of itself and of its works is an old wineskin incapable of grasping the newness of the Gospel, and the new cloth is the new mantle that is woven with fabric threads of love, which has nothing to do with the old and tattered piece of cloth of one’s egocentrism. The disciples understood that salvation is not in boasting about one’s own good works, such as fasting, but in loving Jesus above all else, as the bride loves her husband.
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
