Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I am the good shepherd,
my sheep listen to my voice,
and they become
one flock and one fold.
.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Luke 12, 49-53
'I have come to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were blazing already!
There is a baptism I must still receive, and what constraint I am under until it is completed!
'Do you suppose that I am here to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.
For from now on, a household of five will be divided: three against two and two against three;
father opposed to son, son to father, mother to daughter, daughter to mother, mother-in-law to daughter-in-law, daughter-in-law to mother-in-law.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
At the same time that Jesus exhorts his disciples to vigilance, he tells them that the moment of decision has come. With him has come the end times and one can no longer put off the choice for the Gospel. To help the disciples clearly understand his apostolic concerns, Jesus uses the image of fire that he himself will cast on the Earth: “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” The book of Revelation takes up this theme again when it refers to the angel who will come at the end of time and cast fire on the Earth (8:5). Jesus wants the disciples to let go of any lazy, tardy, cold and closed attitudes and to welcome the same sort of concern that he has: he will not be able to rest until the flame of love burns in the hearts of men and women. In that way, the disciples are not called to a greedy and easy life, concerned only with taking care of themselves and their group. How many men and women feel that their salvation lies in their own personal well-being and in the ease of worrying only about their own personal happiness! Yet the disciples live another dimension, another tension. They immerge themselves in the Gospelas if they were baptized (indeed, “immersed”) in the Gospelpushed by the urgency to communicate it to men and women so that they be saved from loneliness and death. Following the Gospel involves the disciples’ entire lives; they are as if consumed by it. Following Jesus calls for a separation from the old life based on the bonds of the flesh. Our blood relations are obviously important but they do not constitute salvation in and of themselves. Only the Gospel is the fire that saves and that changes the world starting with a change of heart in every one of us. Paul says in Ephesians, “Christ is our peace (2:14) and Jesus himself said: “Blessed are the peacemakers.” In this case, there is no contradiction between peace and the sword. The peace that Jesus brings is not of this world (John 14:27); Jesus’ peace is not miserly tranquillity or safety in one’s familiar ways. In order to enjoy the peace that comes from the Gospel, purification through fire is necessary, so that the bad from the good may separate, and one may discern between the light that Jesus brings in the world and the shadows of evil. Peace is a gift and an achievement; it is a welcoming of the Gospel and an abandonment of egocentrism.
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
