Reading of the Word of God
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
You are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a people acquired by God
to proclaim his marvellous works.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Jeremiah 18,18-20
'Come on,' they said, 'let us concoct a plot against Jeremiah, for the Law will not perish for lack of priests, nor advice for lack of wise men, nor the word for lack of prophets. Come on, let us slander him and pay no attention to anything he says.' Pay attention to me, Yahweh, hear what my adversaries are saying. Should evil be returned for good? Now they are digging a pit for me. Remember how I pleaded before you and spoke good of them, to turn your retribution away from them.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
This short passage reports the thoughts and contradictions that shake the soul of the prophet Jeremiah. In him we see the figure of the believer who is being persecuted by his enemies and who receives "evil" for the "good" he does. Not only did his enemies refuse his preaching, but they even felt it was unnecessary. They claimed they already knew what the will of God was because of their ritual practices and the responsibility they had to interpret the law. It is the same attitude the Pharisees will have toward Jesus, who will be challenged certainly because he preaches a teaching centred on love, but most of all because he presents himself as the true and authoritative interpreter of the mind of God, indeed as the one and only Teacher. And this is the attitude of all those - even in the Christian story - who consider themselves self-sufficient and capable of living their faith alone. The prophet Jeremiah knows that he was not the one who chose to be a prophet. And, in fact, he neither speaks on his own initiative nor proposes his own ideas. It is the Lord who chose him and sent him to speak to the people and to reveal God’s will. The presence of prophets is a sign of God’s love, who does not want his people to be slaves of their own thoughts and their own narrow horizons. Through the prophets and finally through his own Son, the Lord wants to involve believers in his Word, in his great plan of love for all the peoples on earth. Despite his hesitation, Jeremiah realizes he cannot yield surrender to the enemies who continue to lay deadly traps for him. This is why he speaks directly to the Lord: "Give heed to me, O Lord, and listen to what my adversaries say" (v. 19). And with the familiarity of the believer, he reminds God of the time when he interceded for those who are now his enemies. He does not hesitate to invoke punishment for their evil deeds: "Do not forgive their iniquity" (v. 23). The Lord Jesus, who brings the proclamation of the Kingdom to its climax, purifies Jeremiah’s request and invites his disciples to pray even for their enemies, setting the example for them himself. The love that the Lord gives us is stronger than any evil, strong enough to defeat it.
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
