EVERYDAY PRAYER

Liturgy of the Sunday
Word of god every day

Liturgy of the Sunday

Third Sunday of Easter Read more

Libretto DEL GIORNO
Liturgy of the Sunday
Sunday, April 10

Homily

The Gospel passage the liturgy proclaims in this third Sunday of Easter tells us of Jesus’ third apparition to the apostles after his resurrection. It enables us dwell in the mystery of Easter as it is told in the Gospels. The invitation Jesus addresses to his disciples on the shores of the Sea of Galilee becomes true also for us in this holy Liturgy: "Come and eat." Indeed the liturgy is always an invitation from the Lord. As then, the Gospel becomes true: "Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them." The holy Liturgy makes us live the great gift of Easter, a gift everyone, indeed the entire world, needs. We need to live with joy in the heart of Easter so that it may force the world to go towards the kingdom of love and peace that Jesus came to establish among men and women. Our experience is not very different from that of Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, the sons of Zebedee and the other two disciples who had returned to fishing for fish and not for people. "That night they caught nothing," notes bitterly the evangelist (Jn 21:3), not even fish. It is also the experience of many men and women who, on many days and nights, produce nothing. And we know it is also our experience when we are far from the Lord. The "night" of which the Gospel speaks is not a temporal notion, rather it is the condition of those who live far from Jesus. Without the Lord, it is always night and all efforts are useless. Jesus said this to his disciples during the last supper: "Because apart from me you can do nothing" (Jn 15:5).
But while everything seemed to end sadly, Jesus came close to the seven tired apostles and met their fatigue and disillusion. Jesus’ closeness, whether they recognized him or not, meant the end of night and, more importantly, the beginning of a new day, of a new life for those tired and fearful disciples. He asked them if they had some fish to eat. The seven men had to confess all their poverty and powerlessness. They did not even have the five loaves and two fish they presented to Jesus before the multiplication of the loaves of bread. With friendly authority, Jesus, whom they still had not recognized, invited them to look elsewhere, "Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some." Those seven men welcomed his invitation and obeyed without the least resistance, even though it would have made sense to resist. The catch was great and miraculous beyond any measure. Obedience to the Word of God makes us perform miracles, the miracles of the Easter of Resurrection.
Faced with this experience of abundance and joy, one of the disciples, the one whom Jesus loved, said, "It is the Lord!" Once more the proclamation of Easter resounded from the mouth of the disciple who had tasted love to the other apostles. Feeling the nearness of the Lord, Simon Peter understood his unworthiness: in front of the Lord and his incredible love, each of us sees our own unworthiness, sin and need for help. Immediately Peter put some clothes on, because he had been naked, dove into the lake, and swam towards Jesus. The others followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish. Next, at the end of the fishing, once on the shore, they see a charcoal fire with the fish and bread that Jesus had prepared. They added the fish they had caught as if to underline the abundance of life that Jesus prepares for his disciples. No one dared to ask him anything; they were speechless, as we are when we are overcome by love and tenderness.
It was a simple scene, full of amazement, but mostly of one question: the one Jesus asked Simon Peter. It was not a question about his past or his disappointments, nor was it about his many fears. Jesus simply asked him, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" Jesus asked Peter about love. He did not remind him of his betrayal a few days before, because love covers a great number of sins. And Peter, even though he had been ashamed in front of Jesus and had run to him, quickly answered, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." It was a truer answer than the one that he had given that Thursday in the upper room when he told Jesus, "I am ready to go with you to prison and to death" (Lk 22:33). Now the answer was truer and more human. Peter did not deserve anything, but Jesus told him, "Feed my sheep," that is, be responsible for the men and women that I am entrusting to you. How was Peter, the very one who had shown himself incapable of staying faithful, supposed to be responsible? Why him? Jesus chose Peter because now he was welcoming the love that Jesus himself was giving, and in love we become capable of speaking, giving witness, and taking care of others.
Jesus did not ask Peter about love only once, he asked him three times, implying always. Every day we are asked if we love the Lord. Every day we are entrusted with the responsibility of caring for others. The only strength and the only reason we have to live come from our love for the Lord. Jesus went on to tell Peter, "When you were younger, you used to fasten your belt and to go wherever you wished." Perhaps Peter remembered his youth in Bethany, when he got up early to go fishing, when he left the house and went wherever he wanted. Perhaps he also remembered his disappointments and maybe even the place where he met Jesus for the first time. As he was thinking about these things, Jesus added, "But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go." The Gospel explains that Jesus is talking about Peter’s death. But like every believer, Peter will not be left alone: the love Jesus demands of us demands involves the Lord before us. It is Jesus who loved us first and who will never abandon us, even when "someone else will fasten a belt around us and take us where we do not wish to go." What counts is our faithfulness to Jesus as in this scene on the shores of the sea, which is repeated for us every Sunday. That scene gives us a taste of eternity, the eternity of Jesus’ love for each of us.

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