Reading of the Word of God
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
I am the good shepherd,
my sheep listen to my voice,
and they become
one flock and one fold.
.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Genesis 17,3-9
And Abram bowed to the ground. God spoke to him as follows, 'For my part, this is my covenant with you: you will become the father of many nations. And you are no longer to be called Abram; your name is to be Abraham, for I am making you father of many nations. I shall make you exceedingly fertile. I shall make you into nations, and your issue will be kings. And I shall maintain my covenant between myself and you, and your descendants after you, generation after generation, as a covenant in perpetuity, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. And to you and to your descendants after you, I shall give the country where you are now immigrants, the entire land of Canaan, to own in perpetuity. And I shall be their God.' God further said to Abraham, 'You for your part must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you, generation after generation.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
The experience of exile and foreign domination - the era in which the Biblical passage of which we just heard a part was written - had reduced Israel to a small remnant for whom God’s promise to become a great and numerous people with a fertile land to live in, a stable country where they could prosper, and a safe place where they could live in peace was being sorely put to the test. In these times of slavery, deprivation, and suffering - which is what happens to the Jewish people every time they stray from God to follow other gods - the people of Israel remember the ancient promises - the "everlasting covenant" made by God with Abraham, to make him "the ancestor of a multitude of nations" and to inhabit the land of Canaan: "I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant" (v. 6-7). In recalling this covenant, the people of Israel do not simply remember an ancient memory, they do not just return to the memory of a glorious past: they make the promise real in the present time. So it is every time people listen to the Scriptures, even for us, the disciples of Jesus. When we open up the book of the Holy Scriptures, especially in moments of community prayer, it is the Lord who once again comes among his people and speaks to us; he reestablishes us as a people who listen to his Word, strengthens us with his Spirit, gives us his dream again, reinvigorates our vocation to be witnesses of his love in the world, and assures us of his promise for the future. Of course, the covenant also requires a commitment on our part, not just as individuals, but as a people. Not a simply legal covenant like a pact that might be made between strangers. It is a covenant of love, freely-given love. It is God in fact who first decided to offer it freely to us, who would not be even capable of imagining it. That is why God can ask Abraham - and us: "As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations" (v. 9).????
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
