Memorial of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. Memorial also of Ananias, who baptized Paul, preached the Gospel and died a martyr. Today the week of prayer for the unity of Christians ends. Prayer for the unity of the Churches. Particular memory of Christian communities in Asia and Oceania Read more
Memorial of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. Memorial also of Ananias, who baptized Paul, preached the Gospel and died a martyr. Today the week of prayer for the unity of Christians ends. Prayer for the unity of the Churches. Particular memory of Christian communities in Asia and Oceania
Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If we die with him, we shall live with him,
if with him we endure, with him we shall reign.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Mark 16, 15-18
And he said to them, 'Go out to the whole world; proclaim the gospel to all creation.
Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.
These are the signs that will be associated with believers: in my name they will cast out devils; they will have the gift of tongues;
they will pick up snakes in their hands and be unharmed should they drink deadly poison; they will lay their hands on the sick, who will recover.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If we die with him, we shall live with him,
if with him we endure, with him we shall reign.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Today the Church remembers the conversion of Saul from Tarsus, an event that marked Christian history in a unique way. Saul, carrying the letters from the High Priest, wanted to persecute the Christians in Damascus with the utmost rigour. While Paul was approaching the city, a light suddenly surrounded him; blinded, he fell on the ground and heard a voice calling him twice by name: “Saul, Saul.” He did not see anything; he only heard a voice that called him by name. The fact of being called by name is in certain moments a decisive and unforgettable experience. Bewildered, Saul asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The answer came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” We do not know what Paul’s first thought was; certainly he may have thought that you cannot persecute a dead person; evidently, Jesus was alive. He got up but he could not see anything; taken by hand by his companions, astonished at what had happened, Paul went to Damascus as Jesus’ voice had ordered him. What happened to Paul? It was not a matter, as it is generally thought, of a conversion from one religion to another: the Christian group was still entirely within Judaism and nobody was thinking of another religion. It was a much deeper event for Paul, an event that radically changed him; it was a true rebirth. This is why Paul’s fall is one of those emblematic episodes that question the life of each person, as if to say that if “we do not fall”, if “we do not touch the ground,” we will hardly understand what it means to live. Unfortunately we are all too used to relying on ourselves, to insisting on our ego. Not only do we not fall on the ground, we do not even look down, towards the sorrow of others. In truth, each of us is a poor man or a poor woman. Only when we acknowledge our poverty can we take the way of wisdom. Indeed, pride brings us to ruin, to clash with others, and to violence. On the contrary, humility generates us anew, makes us more understanding, more in solidarity with others, more human. Paul’s fall is a sign for all, for those who believe and for those who do not, for it makes all more human and therefore open to salvation. Paul, fallen from his own self, welcomed the Gospel and became a universal man. His preaching overcame not only the ethnic Jewish borders, but also any border. The words of the risen Jesus to the Eleven, “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation” became the gist of Paul’s mission. “Woe to me if I do not evangelise,” Paul wrote to the Corinthians and he went to preach the Gospel till the ends of the earth. And everywhere, his proclamation was confirmed by wonders and if he took in his hand some snakes, like it happened in Malta, he was not affected by it. Even today Paul asks us to understand the primacy of evangelisation in the life of Christian communities.
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
