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
Matthew 9, 9-13
As Jesus was walking on from there he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, 'Follow me.' And he got up and followed him.
Now while he was at table in the house it happened that a number of tax collectors and sinners came to sit at the table with Jesus and his disciples.
When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, 'Why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners?'
When he heard this he replied, 'It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick.
Go and learn the meaning of the words: Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice. And indeed I came to call not the upright, but sinners.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Walking, Jesus sees Matthew, a tax collector in charge of collecting the taxes that were going to fatten the coffers of the Tetrarch, the governor of the region, and of the hated Romans. Matthew is the author of the Gospel we have just heard. As a tax-collector, Matthew is one of the publicans who were considered cheaters and exploiters of the people and the law. Moreover, they were considered unclean, because they handled money and made shady money business. In short, they were people to be avoided. Together with the excommunicated, thieves and usurers, publicans should not even be greeted. Jesus, however, comes close to and starts talking with him. At the end of the conversation, Jesus even offers Matthew an invitation: “Follow me.” A tax-collector is called to be part of the disciples. What a difference from the attitude of not getting close and not shaking hands! Matthew, unlike many people who considered themselves religious and pure, immediately gets up from his desk and begins to follow Jesus. From a sinner that he was, he becomes an example of how to follow the Lord. Indeed, with the Gospel that bears his name he has become a guide to many. We also follow this old publican and sinner who leads us to the knowledge and love of the Lord Jesus. Matthew immediately invites Jesus to a banquet. All of his friends come too. It is a strange banquet: composed, in fact, of publicans and sinners. But Jesus is not ashamed of being with them. Some of the Pharisees are scandalized by this scene and say to Jesus’ disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?” Hearing the objection, Jesus responds directly to the controversy with a proverb irrefutable for its clarity: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” Jesus does not mean that the Pharisees are healthy and others are sick. For him, in fact, there is never a Manichean division between good people and bad people, between the righteous and sinners. Jesus just wants to explain his mission: he has come to help and to heal, to liberate and save. In order to follow and welcome Jesus and his Gospel we need to realize we have a wound, to feel needy, to open up our heart with a question and a search in the same way a sick person does. For this, speaking directly to the Pharisees, Jesus adds, “Go and learn what this means: mercy I desire not sacrifice.” Jesus encourages everyone to imitate him: “Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29). And even closer to each of us, he adds, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” This is why it is it is not hard to feel the Lord at our side. We need just to admit that before him we are in need and we are not so healthy as unfortunately often we pretend to be.
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
