Reading of the Word of God
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Isaiah 58,9-14
Then you will cry for help and Yahweh will answer; you will call and he will say, 'I am here.' If you do away with the yoke, the clenched fist and malicious words, if you deprive yourself for the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, your light will rise in the darkness, and your darkest hour will be like noon. Yahweh will always guide you, will satisfy your needs in the scorched land; he will give strength to your bones and you will be like a watered garden, like a flowing spring whose waters never run dry. Your ancient ruins will be rebuilt; you will build on age -- old foundations. You will be called 'Breach-mender', 'Restorer of streets to be lived in'. If you refrain from breaking the Sabbath, from taking your own pleasure on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath 'Delightful', and the day sacred to Yahweh 'Honourable', if you honour it by abstaining from travel, from seeking your own pleasure and from too much talk, then you will find true happiness in Yahweh, and I shall lead you in triumph over the heights of the land. I shall feed you on the heritage of your father Jacob, for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
This passage from Isaiah continues the reflection on fasting: what kind of fasting does God want us to practice? Again we are asked to free people from oppression. An invitation to fast from "the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil" is added, that is, to fast from unjust judgment and slander, practices that are still common today. The text returns to a statement made in the preceding verses, in which we are asked to "offer...food to the hungry," but makes an extraordinary point. According to the current translation, it says, "to offer your food to the hungry." But it would be better to say, "Offer yourself - or your soul - to the hungry." It is not just about sharing food with the hungry, but sharing oneself, one’s own life. The fast that God desires leads us to share our lives with the poor. This choice, which requires a personal commitment, leads to a profound transformation in our very existence. The consequences described in the following verses are clear: The Lord will guide those who convert themselves to the poor, will give them strength and will make them "like a watered garden, like a spring of water." Love for the poor radically changes our lives and makes us reference points for others, springs of water for the world. Moreover, "you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in." Those who give to the poor make a city that has fallen into ruin liveable; they make it inhabitable again, because they create that community of the "humble and the poor" of which the prophet Zephaniah speaks. The text adds a final invitation regarding the Sabbath, the day of the Lord. Keeping it makes it possible to experience in full what we just heard. There is a profound unity between celebrating the memory of the Lord on His day and loving the poor. Without listening to the Word of God, without remembering his love, we will each be caught up in ourselves and practice our religion on the outside, without a centre or a heart. During the time of Lent the Lord invites us to live with him and to remember his love, so that we can fast from ourselves and give ourselves to others, starting with the poor.
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
