EVERYDAY PRAYER

Liturgy of the Sunday
Word of god every day

Liturgy of the Sunday

Fourth Sunday of Advent Read more

Libretto DEL GIORNO
Liturgy of the Sunday
Sunday, December 21

Homily

We are at the last Sunday of Advent. Jesus is at the door. Someone is coming. It is worth changing our heart to welcome him. This is not about accepting an argument, but welcoming a child. He is coming to remain with us; he is entrusting himself directly to you. We ought to open the doors of our heart and make room for him. Otherwise there is no Christmas. There is no Christmas without our heart. For this reason we ought to ask ourselves: what kind of Christmas are we preparing? What kind of Christmas do we want for this world marked by fear and uncertainty? What kind of Christmas do we want for a world that allows war and injustices to happen; that is at once uncertain and arrogant; that, easily bothered, pushes away the weak; that wants everything without accepting the risk of love and responsibility; and that closes the doors both to its heart and home? A world that has so much, but is dissipated and weary; a world in which it seems difficult to make room for others; a world that gets exhausted quickly and does not want to be bothered. A world that is banal and egocentric, wanting everything for itself! Truly nothing new is born amid the busy haste of consumerism. We don't find anything new there. Where is Christmas? We are material people and we try to make others happy by buying them presents. But how little do we want to give our life as a gift! How little do we think of that foreign infant; we think he is not worth anything. This weak child has nothing to do with us, has nothing to give us in exchange. How much do we exhaust ourselves shopping, while giving little space to the search for true love! The grand gift that we ought to give, in fact, is not stuff, but love! And love cannot be bought. Rather, one must welcome love; one must learn it with this small child who asks us to be born.
God does not choose to be born in the important palaces of Israel's social life. Mary is a poor young girl from Nazareth, a very small village on the periphery of Galilee. God chose her to make himself “flesh.” With Mary, Christmas came, starting from her heart that welcomed the Lord. Since then, Christmas is when God finds a home in the heart of men and women. It is a sad affirmation of the evangelist when he notes that “there was no place for them in the inn.” The house God seeks is entirely human. “We are the Temple of the living God,” the apostle will remind us. That child will have no place to lay his head, because he wants to be everywhere with us. He says, “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking.” If we open the door to him, he will stay with us. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us,” wrote the evangelist John. Mary is the first to listen to the Word and the first to be available. She is God's first home, the Ark of the Covenant. With her, entire humanity becomes the house of God. She said to the angel who appeared to her, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Mary does not wait; she does not take time. Not everything is clear, but she says yes. Mary does not see the fruits immediately; she does not say yes because she had the proof before her eyes-- she makes room for the word of God. “And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord,” Elizabeth will say. This is the first beatitude of the Gospel.
Let us open our heart to the Gospel and the world will be free from enmity and will open itself up to love. Let us take on the burden of God's weakness and of humanity's weakness and we will find a love that never ends. Let us also physically prepare a place for those who have none. Let us not leave anyone on his or her own! Christmas means to welcome the child and all those who are poor and weak. This is Christmas. Mary is in front of us, let us imitate her to be free to love and not become servants to ourselves and to our possessions. Nothing is impossible for God. Nothing is impossible for those who believe. And let us ask the Lord to melt the coldness of our heart, to conquer the fears that block us and to free us from an ever present love for ourselves.
Make haste to come, Lord, in our world so full of fears and violence. Come Lord, and free us to recognize you, leaving you room so that we may be born to new life with you.

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