EVERYDAY PRAYER

Sunday Vigil
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Sunday Vigil
Saturday, October 10


Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Joel 4, 12-21

'Let the nations rouse themselves and march to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I shall sit in judgement on all the nations around.

Ply the sickle, for the harvest is ripe; come and tread, for the winepress is full; the vats are overflowing, so great is their wickedness!'

Multitude on multitude in the Valley of Decision! For the Day of Yahweh is near in the Valley of the Verdict!

Sun and moon grow dark, the stars lose their brilliance.

Yahweh roars from Zion, he thunders from Jerusalem; heaven and earth tremble. But Yahweh will be a shelter for his people, a stronghold for the Israelites.

'Then you will know that I am Yahweh your God residing on Zion, my holy mountain. Jerusalem will then be a sanctuary, no foreigners will overrun it ever again.'

When that Day comes, the mountains will run with new wine and the hills will flow with milk, and all the stream-beds of Judah will run with water. A fountain will spring from Yahweh's Temple and water the Gorge of the Acacias.

Egypt will become a desolation, and Edom a desert waste on account of the violence done to the children of Judah whose innocent blood they shed in their country.

But Judah will be inhabited for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation!

'I shall avenge their blood and let none go unpunished,' and Yahweh will dwell in Zion.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The prophet announces the coming of the Day of the Lord: "The day of the Lord is near" (v.14). The words of Joel seem to be opposed to those spoken by Isaiah. The latter had announced that at the end time, there would be a great transformation on the earth. And he said: "They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. "(Is 2:4). Joel, however, seems to invite war: "Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe" (v.13). With these words, the prophet is referring to the time of decision, the moment of the last judgment. But this time has already arrived; it is our time. Consequently, we cannot live our faith as if we take it for granted, as if everything were going well and we can be at ease. Faith in the Lord of the Bible, and in particular Christian faith, requires a decision, a struggle against the evil one, war against the devil, the spirit of division, but especially waiting for the definitive coming of the Lord. Jesus himself had said, "From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force." These words are certainly not a call to violence, but to a consideration of the struggling and suffering that being Christian requires, especially towards ourselves. The decisive battle between the spirit of Jesus and the spirit of the devil is fought in the heart of every one of us. Jesus’ disciples have no more time to postpone their decision about the Gospel. That is to say that we can no longer put off the decision to follow Jesus. We are already in the last times. It is urgent for us to decide to spend our lives for the Lord.

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