Reading of the Word of God
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Isaiah 65, 17-21
For look, I am going to create new heavens and a new earth, and the past will not be remembered and will come no more to mind.
Rather be joyful, be glad for ever at what I am creating, for look, I am creating Jerusalem to be 'Joy' and my people to be 'Gladness'.
I shall be joyful in Jerusalem and I shall rejoice in my people. No more will the sound of weeping be heard there, nor the sound of a shriek;
never again will there be an infant there who lives only a few days, nor an old man who does not run his full course; for the youngest will die at a hundred, and at a hundred the sinner will be accursed.
They will build houses and live in them, they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
This passage from Isaiah refers to the return of the people of Israel, after their exile, to Jerusalem as the city is being rebuilt. The Israelites have been back in Jerusalem for a while, but they are struggling to return to the Lord with their hearts, to keep his law and to rediscover the joy of the covenant with the Lord and of participation in his plan of love. At this point, we have the speech of the prophet: he is called to shake the people of Israel from the resignation in which they fell after returning from exile, as if now there was no longer any hope of a new and beautiful future for them. The Word of God resonates again to awaken the lethargy and resignation of Israel. It is the Lord who, once again, shows the vision and mission he wants to entrust to them. The prophet calls them to go beyond their sadness, "For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight" (vv.17-18). Evidently the memory of exile had such a profound impact on the hearts and minds of the people of Israel that they were at the point of closing their hearts to the hope of a new future and even of resigning themselves to living a narrow and self-referential destiny. The Lord intervened and gave his people a new vision, a new dream, with new energy. It is he himself who involves his people in a full way. The resignation that had pushed the people to withdraw arose from the little trust in the Lord, as if rebuilding the city was their work alone. Indeed, the Lord descends once again among his people, and involves them in his grand design, in the dream to make of all the people a family and of Jerusalem a city for everyone. It will be a city where "no more the sound of weeping be heard in it and the cry of distress" (v.19). And again: "No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed"(v.20). Even today Isaiah’s words are an incisive dream in their prophecy. The Lord entrusts this dream to us, asking us to abandon all laziness and resignation.
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
