EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Mother of the Lord
Word of god every day

Memory of the Mother of the Lord

Memorial of Mary Magdalene. She announced to the disciples that the Lord was risen Read more

Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Mother of the Lord
Tuesday, July 22

Psalmody

Psalm 73

Antiphon

Lord do not forget the life of your poor

Why, O God, have you cast us off for ever?
Why blaze with anger at the sheep of your pasture?

Remember your people whom you chose long ago,
the tribe you redeemed to be your own possession,
the mountain of Zion where you made your dwelling.

Turn your steps to these places that are utterly ruined!
The enemy has laid waste the whole of the sanctuary.

Your foes have made uproar in your house of prayer;
they have set up their emblems, their foreign emblems,
high above the entrance to the sanctuary.

Their axes have battered the wood of its doors.
They have struck together with hatchet and pickaxe.

O God, they have set your sanctuary on fire :
they have razed and profaned the place where you dwell.

They said in their hearts : 'Let us utterly crush them:
let us burn every shrine of God in the land'.

There is no sign from God, nor have we a prophet,
we have no one to tell us how long it will last.

How long, O God, is the enemy to scoff?
is the foe to insult your name for ever?

Why, O Lord, do you hold back your hand?
Why do you keep your right hand hidden?

Yet God is our king from time past,
the giver of help through all the land.

It was you who divided the sea by your might,
who shattered the heads of the monsters in the sea.

It was you who crushed Leviathan's heads
and gave him as food to the untamed beasts.

It was you who opened springs and torrents;
it was you who dried up ever-flowing rivers.

Yours is the day and yours is the night.
It was you who appointed the light and the sun :

it was you who fixed the bounds of the earth:
you who made both summer and winter.

Remember this, Lord, and see the enemy scoffing;
a senseless people insults you name.

Do not give Israel, your dove to the hawk
nor forget the life of your poor ones for ever.

Remember your covenant; every cave in the land
is a place where violence makes it home.

Do not let the oppressed return disappointed;
let the poor and the needy bless your name.

Arise, O God, and defend your cause!
Remember how the senseless revile you all the day.

Do not forget the clamour of your foes,
the daily increasing uproar of your foes.

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR

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!

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR