Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.
The child you shall bear will be holy.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Matthew 5, 43-48
'You have heard how it was said, You will love your neighbour and hate your enemy.
But I say this to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you;
so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on the bad as well as the good, and sends down rain to fall on the upright and the wicked alike.
For if you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Do not even the tax collectors do as much?
And if you save your greetings for your brothers, are you doing anything exceptional?
Do not even the gentiles do as much? You must therefore be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Jesus’ speech on oppositions continues. After having reminded his disciples about the common proverb of the time: “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy,” Jesus announces his Gospel: “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Jesus proposes the first commandment of love as the heart of the life of the disciple and of the Church. The short message of this Gospel passage demonstrates very well the real wisdom of life. It is certainly not to let oneself be guided by hate and revenge. Yet these sentiments and attitudes have always been present in men and women and they do not cease to reveal their strength. Unfortunately, they appear very normal. It is easy to think that it is natural to defend oneself from someone who wants to inflict evil. Yet Jesus is asking us to go down into the depths of the heart and life of men and women. He knows that evil cannot be defeated by patting it or coming to terms with it. It must be removed at its very root. Although it seems paradoxical, Jesus asks his disciples to love their enemies. He is stating something that scandalizes our current mentality. It is indeed troubling. We ask ourselves whether it is truly possible. Doesn’t this sound like an abstract and unattainable utopia? Shouldn’t we apply to this passage what the disciples said at Capernaum in response to Jesus’ statement that he was the bread of life: “This word is hard”? Although these words are troubling, Jesus himself put them into practice when from the cross, he prayed for his executioners. And how many martyrs, starting from Stephen, have lived with the same spirit! Clearly, this kind of love does not come from men and women and even less from the natural outpouring of our hearts: it comes from Heaven, from God who lets his sun rise on the good and the evil, without partiality. None of us deserves to be loved simply on our own merits which, if we have any, are truly negligible. The Lord offers his love freely, without our meriting it. Clearly the disciples should live in this horizon of love. There must be a paradoxical dimension in Christian life: the paradox of a love that comes from Heaven and transforms the Earth. Otherwise, “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?” Indeed we become like salt that has lost its taste and like light that has lost its splendour. Jesus proposes an audacious ideal. He says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” This is clearly impossible. But if we welcome his love, we are on the way to God’s perfection. In a time when the logic of opposition and the search for the enemy reign; the exhortation to love our enemies seems very troubling yet it is liberating. Seeking enemies and opponents has become a determined way of thinking from which Jesus’ words liberate us. Jesus knows well that in life we encounter difficulties in relationships which can often spiral into conflict; he knows that enmity between people can easily develop. In order to avoid these infernal chains, Jesus gives us an exhortation that no one else had ever previously uttered: “Love your enemies!” Only thus can love truly prevail. The Gospel does not negate the complexities of life, but it does reverse the notion that conflict is the only, inevitable way we can regulate our relationships. Indeed, whoever may be our enemy today may become our friend tomorrow.
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
