Memorial of Oscar Arnulfo Romero, archbishop of San Salvador. He was killed on March 24, 1980 on the altar. Memory of the massacre of the Fosse Ardeatine that took place in Rome in 1944, in which the Nazis killed 335 people. Read more
Memorial of Oscar Arnulfo Romero, archbishop of San Salvador. He was killed on March 24, 1980 on the altar. Memory of the massacre of the Fosse Ardeatine that took place in Rome in 1944, in which the Nazis killed 335 people.
Reading of the Word of God
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
You are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a people acquired by God
to proclaim his marvellous works.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Numbers 21, 4-9
They left Mount Hor by the road to the Sea of Suph, to skirt round Edom. On the way the people lost patience.
They spoke against God and against Moses, 'Why did you bring us out of Egypt to die in the desert? For there is neither food nor water here; we are sick of this meagre diet.'
At this, God sent fiery serpents among the people; their bite brought death to many in Israel.
The people came and said to Moses, 'We have sinned by speaking against Yahweh and against you. Intercede for us with Yahweh to save us from these serpents.' Moses interceded for the people,
and Yahweh replied, 'Make a fiery serpent and raise it as a standard. Anyone who is bitten and looks at it will survive.'
Moses then made a serpent out of bronze and raised it as a standard, and anyone who was bitten by a serpent and looked at the bronze serpent survived.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
The passage from the book of Numbers reports one of the most critical moments of the journey of the people of Israel in the desert. Prostrate by fatigue, all the Israelites show their displeasure to God and Moses. They come to regret the time of slavery in Egypt: "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food"(v.5). Regret for the past arises when a dream fades, when we give up the vision and the project in which God has called us to participate. And then we turn back to ourselves and we allow ourselves to be dominated by pettiness, resignation, nostalgia for the past; laments take precedence over everything and everyone. Then poisonous snakes appear which bite and kill people everywhere. It is not God who sends snakes; we ourselves spread poison in the field and become snakes; our tongues resemble those of the poisonous snakes that kill. How often, unfortunately, among people: between groups, factions and nations, we destroy one another just with words, and we are not even able to dialogue! The awareness of sin leads the Israelites to turn to Moses so that he may intercede with the Lord. And the Lord intervened once again. He made them build a bronze serpent and had them plant it in the camp; whoever looked at it, after having been bitten, would be saved. The desert that had become a place of death because of the poison that human beings spread among one another was transformed into a place of salvation because of the serpent raised on the pole. As we listen to the final words of this biblical passage, we are reminded directly of the Cross that in not many days will be planted on Golgotha, and that we are invited to contemplate and welcome in our hearts. This Lent, the biblical passages that accompany us, day after day, are an effective aid to cleanse our eyes and to turn them to "the one who was pierced" for our salvation
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
