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
Luke 10, 38-42
In the course of their journey he came to a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house.
She had a sister called Mary, who sat down at the Lord's feet and listened to him speaking.
Now Martha, who was distracted with all the serving, came to him and said, 'Lord, do you not care that my sister is leaving me to do the serving all by myself? Please tell her to help me.'
But the Lord answered, 'Martha, Martha,' he said, 'you worry and fret about so many things,
and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part, and it is not to be taken from her.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The evangelist Luke places the story of Martha and Mary immediately after the parable of the Good Samaritan, as if to tightly bind the two fundamental attitudes of Christians: love for the poor (the Good Samaritan) and listening to the Word of Jesus (Mary). In the Church there are no experts of charity and experts of prayer. Every Christian is called to love the poor and to pray. One cannot divide prayer from charity. This is why Jesus stigmatizes the attitude of the priest and the sacristan: you can not serve the altar without serving the poor. They are two inseparable forms of worship. Today’s Gospel makes us reflect on prayer; a prayer understood primarily as listening to the Word of God. Mary at the feet of Jesus is the image of each disciple. Christians, in fact, are first and foremost people who hear the word of the Master, and keep it in their heart. Yes, Christians are men and women of prayer. Disciples should in fact look more like Mary than Martha. The latter is swept by an activism that distances her from hearing the Word; her mind, no longer enlivened by the Word, hardens and becomes even wicked to the point of blaming even Jesus of insensitivity. Christians are always and primarily disciples of the Lord. This is the truest and deepest definition. The very being of Christians and their actions derive from the Word of God. In prayer we discover to be children, to be able to speak with familiarity to God, and trust him with full confidence. For this you could say that prayer is the first and fundamental work of Christians. It is both personal prayer, that is possible in any place, and common prayer. In prayer we learn to love the Lord, brothers and sisters, and the poor. Love, in fact, does not come from us, from our nature or our natural talents. Love is a gift that comes from above; it is the very the same Spirit of God that is poured into our hearts as we stay before the Father who is in heaven, with humility and willingness. One could close this Gospel passage with the words that Jesus said to the doctor of the Law in the parable of the Good Samaritan: “Go and do likewise.” Yes, let Mary be our example so that we will also be able to stop in front of the poor.
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
