EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Church
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Church
Thursday, August 13

Psalmody

Psalm 68

Antiphon

Turn to me, Lord, in your great tenderness.

Save me, O God,
for the waters have risen to my neck.

I have sunk into the mud of the deep
and there is no foothold.

I have entered the waters of the deep
and the waves overwhelm me.

I am wearied with all my crying,
my throat is parched.

My eyes are wasted away
from looking for my God.

More numerous than the hairs on my head
are those who hate me without cause.

Those who attack me with lies
are too much for my strength.

How can I restore
what I have never stolen?

O God, you know my sinful folly;
my sins you can see.

Let those who hope in you not be put to shame
through me, Lord of hosts :

let not those who seek you be dismayed
through me, God of Israel.

It is for you that I suffer taunts,
that shame covers my face,

that I have become a stranger to my brothers,
an alien to my own mother's sons.

I burn with zeal for your house
and taunts against you fall on me.

When I afflict my soul with fasting
they make it a taunt against me.

When I put on sackcloth in mourning
then they make me a byword,

the gossip of men at the gates,
the subject of drunkards' songs.

This is my prayer to you,
my prayer for your favour.

In your great love, answer me, O God,
with your help that never fails :

rescue me from sinking in the mud;
save me from my foes.

Save me from the waters of the deep
lest the waves overwhelm me.

Do not let the deep engulf me
nor death close its mouth on me.

Lord, answer, for your love is kind;
in your compassion, turn towards me.

Do not hide your face from your servant;
answer quickly for I am in distress.

Come close to my soul and redeem me;
ransom me pressed by my foes.

You know how they taunt and deride me;
my oppressors are all before you.

Taunts have broken my heart;
I have reached the end of my strength.

I looked in vain for compassion,
for consolers; not one could I find.

For food they gave me poison;
in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

Let their table be a snare to them
and their festive banquets a trap.

Let their eyes grow dim and blind;
let their limbs tremble and shake.

Pour out your anger upon them,
let the heat of your fury overtake them.
Let their camp be left desolate;

let no one dwell in their tents :
for they persecute one whom you struck;
they increase the pain of him you wounded.

Charge them with guilt upon guilt;
let them never be found just in your sight.

Blot them out from the book of the living;
do not enrol them among the just.

As for me in my poverty and pain
let your help, O God, lift me up.

I will praise God's name with a song;
I will glorify him with thanksgiving.

A gift pleasing God more than oxen,
more than beasts prepared for sacrifice.

The poor when they see it will be glad
and God-seeking hearts will revive;

for the Lord listens to the needy
and does not spurn his servants in their chains.

Let the heavens and the earth give him praise,
the sea and all its living creatures.

For God will bring help to Zion
and rebuild the cities of Judah
and men shall dwell there in possession.

The sons of his servants shall inherit it;
those who love his name shall dwell there.

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR

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!

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR