Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Luke 11, 27-28
It happened that as he was speaking, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said, 'Blessed the womb that bore you and the breasts that fed you!'
But he replied, 'More blessed still are those who hear the word of God and keep it!'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
As often happens in the Gospels, Jesus is speaking to the crowds, teaching them the path to salvation. As usual, everyone was astonished and amazed by the words coming out of his mouth. In another part of the Gospel it is written that Jesus “spoke with authority and not like the scribes.” This astonishment makes a woman cry out from the crowd: “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!” It is a very short passage from Luke’s Gospel. But its spontaneity underlines the essential dimension of a believer’s life, a dimension that is extraordinarily clear in Mary’s attitude. By praising Mary, the woman in the crowd was trying to express her admiration for Jesus. But nonetheless, she was speaking from the perspective of a worldly way of thinking, according to which everything happens naturally. It is a temptation to which we ourselves can easily fall victim: it is easy to believe that everything depends on a person’s personality and social environment, that is, on his or her nature, abilities, and the means he or she has available. It is not so. And Jesus corrects this woman. True blessedness, Jesus affirms, does not come from letting ourselves be guided by spontaneity, by our instincts, our natural inclinations, or by our personality, but from our ability to listen to the Word of God. That is why he responds to the woman by saying, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!” And thus he reveals the true blessedness of Mary, his mother. Having listened to the Word of God communicated to her by the angel, she, in fact, was able to participate in God’s great plan of love for the world as the Mother of the Son. Paradoxically, if Mary had not given her consent, God would have had to choose another way to save humanity. It is the extraordinary - and even terrible - mystery of a love that accepts the risk of human freedom. God’s love bound itself to the risks of human freedom. There is no love without freedom, both in giving and in accepting. Those who accept the love that God freely offers are made part of God’s saving plan. That is why we must rediscover the centrality of listening in our lives as believers. The Word of God does not come from the world’s wisdom; indeed it is the Word that engenders a new wisdom, heals sickened lives, restores peace, and converts hearts. Yes, listening to and living the word makes us children of God and brothers and sisters of each other, or rather, brothers and sisters of all of humanity, as Charles de Foucauld was fond of saying.
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
