Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Mark 6, 30-34
The apostles rejoined Jesus and told him all they had done and taught.
And he said to them, 'Come away to some lonely place all by yourselves and rest for a while'; for there were so many coming and going that there was no time for them even to eat.
So they went off in the boat to a lonely place where they could be by themselves.
But people saw them going, and many recognised them; and from every town they all hurried to the place on foot and reached it before them.
So as he stepped ashore he saw a large crowd; and he took pity on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he set himself to teach them at some length.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The apostles returned to Jesus and told him what they had done and taught. It is a beautiful picture depicting the familiarity of the apostles with Jesus and the joy of being able to tell him what had happened. In chapter 10, Luke emphasizes the joy of those seventy-two Jesus had sent in mission when they tell Jesus as their word had defeated evil. Mission gives joy. When we accept to go out of ourselves to the peripheries of the world, as Pope Francis would say, to communicate the word and mercy of Jesus, we experience a great joy and inner peace. But this joy must be consolidated. The power of the word of Jesus that changes, heals and saves us from evil, needs moments spent with Jesus. Otherwise it remains a passing enthusiasm. How often we get excited for something that went well and then we get discouraged once again. Sometimes we lack the basics, the fundamentals. We lack the sap that gives life to the action of Christians. So we end up being dominated by the moment, by our feelings, by success or failure. We get excited and then again we get depressed or discouraged. This is why for Jesus it is not sufficient that things went well so he says to his disciples, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” That rest is the rest of listening and prayer. “Come away” is Jesus’ daily call to be with him. When Jesus “calls” the Twelve, the group of the apostles, he says that first of all they had to “be with him”: “And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles,* to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, 15and to have authority to cast out”(Mk 3:14-15). Being with Jesus is the first task of anyone who is called to be a disciple. Every initiative that has no foundation in listening and prayer, although beautiful, will not bring with it the strength that comes from being with Jesus. This is why we must ask ourselves how much of our days we spend with the Lord in prayer, meditation on the Word of God, before the Eucharist. The Church offers us many ways to “be with Jesus.” And we should not say we do not have time, because we always have time for ourselves. Only those who are with him have the bread needed to feed the multitude of the needy of our world, otherwise they will remain powerless and without answers.
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
