Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.
The child you shall bear will be holy.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Acts 7,51-8,1a
'You stubborn people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears. You are always resisting the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Can you name a single prophet your ancestors never persecuted? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Upright One, and now you have become his betrayers, his murderers. In spite of being given the Law through angels, you have not kept it.' They were infuriated when they heard this, and ground their teeth at him. But Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at God's right hand. 'Look! I can see heaven thrown open,' he said, 'and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.' All the members of the council shouted out and stopped their ears with their hands; then they made a concerted rush at him, thrust him out of the city and stoned him. The witnesses put down their clothes at the feet of a young man called Saul. As they were stoning him, Stephen said in invocation, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' Then he knelt down and said aloud, 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them.' And with these words he fell asleep. Saul approved of the killing. That day a bitter persecution started against the church in Jerusalem, and everyone except the apostles scattered to the country districts of Judaea and Samaria.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
With the stoning of Stephen begins the history of Christian martyrs. He imitates Jesus to his death. Luke reports his last words, which are similar to those Jesus spoke from the cross: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," and again, when Stephen falls to his knees under the rain of stones, he prays, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." And he "fell asleep," the author notes in Greek, as if to soften this violent and tragic death. Stephen is the first (the protomartyr) of a long series of martyrs, which in the twentieth century reached the highest number in the history of the Church. The martyr is someone who does not make deals with the selfish mentality of this world; that is why he or she is violently driven out of the world. That is what happened to Jesus, too. He could not be born in Bethlehem and had to go out; he went to Nazareth and was taken up to the precipice to be killed; and finally in Jerusalem he was taken outside of the walls and crucified. Martyrs are witnesses of the Gospel to the very edge of love, to the point of shedding their blood. Following the example of Jesus, Stephen forgives the people who are killing him. As for Jesus, there are no enemies for him; instead he prays for his persecutors so that they might come to their senses and convert their hearts. For the world, it is easy and normal to hate enemies, or those who are considered as such. And yet what the world needs is to be emptied of its enormous store of violence and filled with forgiveness and love. It is the crucified one who saves the world, not the crucifiers. And we can add that the many martyrs of every age have saved and continue to save the world from destruction. Paul, who had witnessed the martyring of Stephen and approved it to the point of continuing his persecution of Christians, was perhaps the first whose heart was touched by Stephen’s prayer.
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
