Fifth Sunday of Lent Read more
Fifth Sunday of Lent
Reading of the Gospel
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
John 12, 20-33
Among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks.
These approached Philip, who came from Bethsaida in Galilee, and put this request to him, 'Sir, we should like to see Jesus.'
Philip went to tell Andrew, and Andrew and Philip together went to tell Jesus.
Jesus replied to them: Now the hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified.
In all truth I tell you, unless a wheat grain falls into the earth and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies it yields a rich harvest.
Anyone who loves his life loses it; anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
Whoever serves me, must follow me, and my servant will be with me wherever I am. If anyone serves me, my Father will honour him.
Now my soul is troubled. What shall I say: Father, save me from this hour? But it is for this very reason that I have come to this hour.
Father, glorify your name! A voice came from heaven, 'I have glorified it, and I will again glorify it.'
The crowd standing by, who heard this, said it was a clap of thunder; others said, 'It was an angel speaking to him.'
Jesus answered, 'It was not for my sake that this voice came, but for yours.
'Now sentence is being passed on this world; now the prince of this world is to be driven out.
And when I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all people to myself.'
By these words he indicated the kind of death he would die.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
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
