Feast of Mary of Mount Carmel. Read more
Feast of Mary of Mount Carmel.
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
Exodus 3, 13-20
Moses then said to God, 'Look, if I go to the Israelites and say to them, "The God of your ancestors has sent me to you," and they say to me, "What is his name?" what am I to tell them?'
God said to Moses, 'I am he who is.' And he said, 'This is what you are to say to the Israelites, "I am has sent me to you." '
God further said to Moses, 'You are to tell the Israelites, "Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you." This is my name for all time, and thus I am to be invoked for all generations to come.
'Go, gather the elders of Israel together and tell them, "Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, has appeared to me -- the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob -- and has indeed visited you and seen what is being done to you in Egypt,
and has said: I shall bring you out of the misery of Egypt to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, to a country flowing with milk and honey."
They will listen to your words, and you and the elders of Israel are to go to the king of Egypt and say to him, "Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, has encountered us. So now please allow us to make a three-days' journey into the desert and sacrifice to Yahweh our God."
I am well aware that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless he is compelled by a mighty hand;
he will not let you go until I have stretched out my arm and struck Egypt with all the wonders I intend to work there.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Moses is still hesitant and uncertain before the task entrusted to him. He puts God to the test by asking him his name. He is searching for a clear definition, a level of security capable of responding to the world’s many questions. God does not refuse to answer, even if his words are almost enigmatic. Moses is told: “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “I am has sent me to you.” What does this name mean? It is not an evasive or difficult answer. Nor is it an abstract or theoretical definition. In a certain sense, God is not answering. Or rather, his real answer is his closeness to his people: I am the one who is with you, who will accompany you along the road to liberation, who will be with you in the promised land. The name of God is closely linked to history, to the personal relationship between God and his people. We cannot know God’s name in the abstract or as a truth separate from our humanity, removed from the human experience that so strongly conditions us. We could say that God reveals himself while he enters into history along with those who welcome him, while he comes close to us, men and women of the world. “He is the one who is” while he comes close to us. In fact, every man and woman, made in God’s image, is truly him or herself when he or she comes close to other people or thinks about someone else. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a God who revealed himself by guiding the lives of the people who had faith in him, listened to him, and followed him. We cannot know God’s name without entrusting ourselves to him in the daily history of our lives. And it is God who frees us from slavery, so that his people can truly be themselves.
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
