EVERYDAY PRAYER

Liturgy of the Sunday
Word of god every day

Liturgy of the Sunday

Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time Read more

Libretto DEL GIORNO
Liturgy of the Sunday
Sunday, July 13

Homily

The Gospel shows us Jesus along the Sea of Galilee. Because of the very large number of people crowded all around him, he is forced to get into a boat where he tells an important parable. And, a rarity in the Gospels, Jesus himself explains the parable. The profound sense of the parable is clear: one should live by listening to the Gospel and not according to his or her presumptions. The sower goes out to sow and, with broad sweeping arms, copiously disseminates his seeds. He does not seem concerned about selecting the terrain, since many of the seeds are lost. Only those seeds that fall on good earth bear fruit. Even if Jesus does not explicitly say so, he compares himself to the sower whose generosity in sowing seeds is entirely his, not ours. The sower neither calculates nor measures his generosity. All the more! He seems to place his faith in trampled soil or rocky soil as much as in the yielding, ploughed earth. The sower tosses his seed even in the bad earth, hoping that it will take root and sprout. The whole range of soils is important for the sower. In fact, there is no part of the soil that he does not consider worthy of attention. Not a single portion is discarded. The terrain is the world, even that part of the world that is each one of us. It is not difficult to recognize in the diversity of the soils the complexity of situations in the world and in each one of us. Jesus does not want to divide men and women in two categories, those who represent fertile soil and those who represent arid soil.
Each one of us reflects the diversity of terrains represented in the Gospel. Perhaps one day it is stonier than another; other times it receives the Gospel, but lets itself be overcome by temptation; and in another moment it listens and bears fruit. What is certain for all is that there is a need for the sower to enter into our terrain, to turn up the sod, remove the stones, uproot the bitter roots, and toss about the seeds with great abundance. It is not important that the terrain be stony or fertile, but that it welcomes the seed, the Word of God. It is always a gift. But even coming from outside, the Word enters profoundly into the terrain to become one with it. Our hands, perhaps used to handling things we consider of great value, regard this seed to be of little value. How many times we have held our traditions and convictions to be more important than the weak and fragile word of the Gospel! And yet, just as the little seed contains all the potentiality that will grow into a tree, an energy creates our and the world’s future in the word of the Gospel. The important thing is not to hinder it. The prophet Isaiah writes, “For as the rain and the snow come down from the heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout…so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Is 55:10-11).

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!