EVERYDAY PRAYER

Sunday Vigil
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Sunday Vigil
Saturday, February 28


Reading of the Word of God

Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory

Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.

Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory

Dal libro del Deuteronomio 26,16-19

Oggi il Signore, tuo Dio, ti comanda di mettere in pratica queste leggi e queste norme. Osservale e mettile in pratica con tutto il cuore e con tutta l'anima. Tu hai sentito oggi il Signore dichiarare che egli sarà Dio per te, ma solo se tu camminerai per le sue vie e osserverai le sue leggi, i suoi comandi, le sue norme e ascolterai la sua voce. Il Signore ti ha fatto dichiarare oggi che tu sarai il suo popolo particolare, come egli ti ha detto, ma solo se osserverai tutti i suoi comandi. Egli ti metterà, per gloria, rinomanza e splendore, sopra tutte le nazioni che ha fatto e tu sarai un popolo consacrato al Signore, tuo Dio, come egli ha promesso".


 

Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory

If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.

Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory

In Deuteronomy’s typical language, this page insists upon the particular relationship between Israel and its God: the covenant. “He will be your God” and Israel will be “his people.” It is one of the central points of theology in Deuteronomy and of the following books from Joshua until the second book of Kings. The entire history of Israel is marked by the vision of this tight relationship between God and Israel. The Lord has chosen this small people to “consecrate it” to his name. He has separated them from other peoples on earth—even ones more numerous and powerful like Assyria, Egypt, Babylonia, to make it his own, as we read in chapter 7: “It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you—for you were the fewest of all peoples. It was because the Lord loved you” (v.7-8). The covenant with God implicates fidelity to the Law. And the Law opens with an invitation to listen to the Lord: He will be “your God; and for you to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, his commandments, and his ordinances, and to obey him.” Everything hinges upon listening. Israel’s profession of faith, still today recited by all Jews, begins with the words of Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear Oh Israel: the Lord is your God, one is the Lord.” To observe the laws, to walk the ways of God, becomes possible only if we have an attitude of listening. The time of Lent is a good time to get out of our habit of listening to ourselves and to put ourselves before the Lord and listen to his word of life. Only in this perspective will the conversion of our hearts and the entrusting our lives to God be possible, so that he may be the only Lord of our lives. Today too, as in the time of Israel, the sky is populated with idols and concepts, with things we can worship and even sacrifice ourselves. There are so many false prophets that speak every day in order to bend our hearts toward the idols of money, success, glory, power, consumption, and immediate satisfaction of self and one’s own cravings. And many unfortunately allow themselves to be attracted, broadening in this way the idolatric cult of worldly things. To remove ourselves from the slavery of new idolatries we must listen to the Word of God every day, treasure it in our hearts and live it with obedience. The Word of God will take care of us in keeping the Lord’s covenant and protecting our freedom.

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