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
Ezekiel 37, 21-28
say, "The Lord Yahweh says this: I shall take the Israelites from the nations where they have gone. I shall gather them to- gether from everywhere and bring them home to their own soil.
I shall make them into one nation in the country, on the mountains of Israel, and one king is to be king of them all; they will no longer form two nations, nor be two separate kingdoms.
They will no longer defile themselves with their foul idols, their horrors and any of their crimes. I shall save them from the acts of infidelity which they have committed and shall cleanse them; they will be my people and I shall be their God.
My servant David will reign over them, one shepherd for all; they will follow my judgements, respect my laws and practise them.
They will live in the country which I gave to my servant Jacob, the country in which your ancestors lived. They will live in it, they, their children, their children's children, for ever. David my servant is to be their prince for ever.
I shall make a covenant of peace with them, an eternal covenant with them. I shall resettle them and make them grow; I shall set my sanctuary among them for ever.
I shall make my home above them; I shall be their God, and they will be my people.
And the nations will know that I am Yahweh the sanctifier of Israel, when my sanctuary is with them for ever." '
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
We are at the threshold of Holy Week. In the first reading of the Mass we hear this passage of the prophet Ezekiel who wants to rekindle in the people of Israel the dream of freedom and to announce their imminent liberation. As we know, he carries out his mission among the Jews who are in exile in Babylon. He describes for them a vision of what will happen, thanks to the Lord. The prophet Ezekiel has just narrated the extraordinary vision of the dry bones that by the work of the Spirit are reconnected back to life (17:1-14), thus emphasizing that even in the most dramatic conditions, the Lord can revive a new life. It is true that the people experienced the bitterness of exile and deportation, far from the Lord. But once Israel understood that without the Lord it remains among the smallest nations of the earth, at the mercy of the powerful nations, it feels the need to return to the Lord. And yet the Lord takes the initiative and takes action to liberate his people from slavery, "I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from every quarter, and bring them to their own land. I will make them one nation in the land" (v.21-22). As we can see clearly, it is the Lord himself who intervenes directly in reunifying everyone in one people, without divisions. He will send his servant David to be their only guide, their only pastor: "My servant David shall be king over them; and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall follow my ordinances and be careful to observe my statutes"(v.24). Hearing these words on the eve of Passion Week, we cannot but see in the one shepherd, Jesus himself whom we will accompany as he enters the holy city. He is the shepherd that gathers the sheep, who leads them to green pastures and establishes forever a new and everlasting covenant between the Father of the heavens and the people of the disciples who gathered and continue to gather over the centuries.
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
