EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of Jesus crucified
Word of god every day

Memory of Jesus crucified

Memorial of the patriarch Abraham. In faith he journeyed to a land that he did not know, but that was promised to him by God. Because of this faith, he is called the father of believers by Jews, Christians and Muslims Read more

Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of Jesus crucified
Friday, October 9

Memorial of the patriarch Abraham. In faith he journeyed to a land that he did not know, but that was promised to him by God. Because of this faith, he is called the father of believers by Jews, Christians and Muslims


Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Joel 1, 13-15; 2,1-2

Priests, put on sackcloth and lament! You ministers of the altar, wail! Come here, lie in sackcloth all night long, you ministers of my God! For the Temple of your God has been deprived of cereal offering and libation.

Order a fast, proclaim a solemn assembly; you elders, summon everybody in the country to the Temple of Yahweh your God. Cry out to Yahweh:

'Alas for the day! For the Day of Yahweh is near, coming as destruction from Shaddai.'

Blow the ram's-horn in Zion, sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let everybody in the country tremble, for the Day of Yahweh is coming, yes, it is near.

Day of darkness and gloom, Day of cloud and blackness. Like the dawn, across the mountains spreads a vast and mighty people, such as has never been before, such as will never be again to the remotest ages.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The prophet Joel lives in a difficult time marked by war and natural disasters such as drought and famine. The passage we just heard is probably referring to a terrible invasion of locusts that had devastated everything. This devastation is seen as a foreshadowing of the terrible judgment at the end of time. The prophet renews his invitation to conversion, calling "all the inhabitants of the land" (v. 14) to an extraordinary penitential assembly. The prophetic word resounds strongly to keep the people of Israel from following the instinct to become resigned and turn in on themselves. Everyone is invited to gather in the house of the Lord and pray with insistent faith. Fasting accompanies prayer. One could say that in times of difficulty, prayer itself is a fast, that is, the recognition of one’s sins and one’s condition of misery and weakness. It is not our human strength that frees us. God alone can bring salvation. Faced with the evil of the world, believers possess an effective weapon: prayer, the cry of the poor to God to save them. We are aware of our weakness (that is the meaning of fasting), but we are also aware of the strength God has given us in prayer, a strength that changes and reconciles. Jesus repeated this to his disciples insistently: "But this kind does not come out except by prayer and fasting" (Mt 17:21). And later he says, "Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven" (Mt 18:19). Prayer is the first work of the community.

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