Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I am the good shepherd,
my sheep listen to my voice,
and they become
one flock and one fold.
.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
John 17, 20-26
I pray not only for these but also for those who through their teaching will come to believe in me.
May they all be one, just as, Father, you are in me and I am in you, so that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me.
I have given them the glory you gave to me, that they may be one as we are one.
With me in them and you in me, may they be so perfected in unity that the world will recognise that it was you who sent me and that you have loved them as you have loved me.
Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they may always see my glory which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
Father, Upright One, the world has not known you, but I have known you, and these have known that you have sent me.
I have made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and so that I may be in them.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Gospel passage presents the third and last part of Jesus’ “priestly prayer.” The dramatic hour of the passion is drawing closer. Jesus has lifted his eyes to the Father and passionately prayed for that little group of disciples, so that they might not be lost, but rather might continue his own mission of salvation. Now his gaze widens to include all those who in every age and part of the earth will believe in the Gospel because of the apostles’ teaching. The walls of the upper room seem to expand and a multitude of men and women from every corner of the earth, waiting for consolation and peace, appear before Jesus’ eyes. Jesus prays for this vast people and asks the Father that “That they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” Jesus is calling for a true brotherhood of men and women, healthy and sick, great and small. He knows well that the spirit of division, the spirit of the devil, would try to destroy them. It does not matter how the devil is disguised. Everything that divides is inspired by him. The danger of division is so great that Jesus speaks an ambitious, lofty, almost impossible prayer: he asks the Father to give the disciples the same unity, among themselves, that exists between him and the Father. Jesus says, “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one.” Jesus’ “excessive” love - but in reality is quite realistic - asks the impossible, because he knows that the Father loves without any limit. In fact, it is this “excessive” love that qualifies Jesus’ disciples and makes them credible to the world. The men and women of every generation - Jesus affirms - will believe the Gospel to the extent that disciples bear witness to mutual love. Jesus establishes a direct relationship between the disciples’ love and the communication of the Gospel. Without the witness of mutual love, there can be no Christian mission; there can be no evangelization. We need to be more courageous about asking whether we are truly being a leaven of love, unity, solidarity, and communion. The risk of individualizing also Christianity should not be underestimated; on the contrary, it is a widespread phenomenon. This is why mission is so often half-hearted and ineffective. In this time of ours there is an urgent need for us to renew our missionary commitment to communicating the Gospel everywhere. But preaching needs to begin with the concrete witness of that Gospel love that pushes us to love others more than ourselves and to spend our lives for the Gospel and not for our own profit. Those who experience the beauty of this love know that nothing can break it. Not even death. And the unity of the disciples is a prophetic sign of the Church for today’s hopeless world. There is no organization, not even the most technically perfect, that can replace the love between brothers and sisters. This is still the secret of the effectiveness of the Church’s mission today.
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
