Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Acts 9,31-42
The churches throughout Judaea, Galilee and Samaria were now left in peace, building themselves up and living in the fear of the Lord; encouraged by the Holy Spirit, they continued to grow. It happened that Peter visited one place after another and eventually came to God's holy people living down in Lydda. There he found a man called Aeneas, a paralytic who had been bedridden for eight years. Peter said to him, 'Aeneas, Jesus Christ cures you: get up and make your bed.' Aeneas got up immediately; everybody who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they were converted to the Lord. At Jaffa there was a disciple called Tabitha, or in Greek, Dorcas, who never tired of doing good or giving to those in need. But it happened that at this time she became ill and died, and they washed her and laid her out in an upper room. Lydda is not far from Jaffa, so when the disciples heard that Peter was there, they sent two men to urge him, 'Come to us without delay.' Peter went back with them immediately, and on his arrival they took him to the upper room, where all the widows stood round him in tears, showing him tunics and other clothes Dorcas had made when she was with them. Peter sent everyone out of the room and knelt down and prayed. Then he turned to the dead woman and said, 'Tabitha, stand up.' She opened her eyes, looked at Peter and sat up. Peter helped her to her feet, then he called in the members of the congregation and widows and showed them she was alive. The whole of Jaffa heard about it and many believed in the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
After having spoken at length about Paul and noted that the Christian community was growing in a climate of peace, the author of Acts brings back onto the scene Peter, who continues - literally, we could say - the work of Jesus. These stories demonstrate how the Christian community was growing. Consequently, they are emblematic of the missionary conversion that today Pope Francis insistently asks of all Christian communities. Luke notes that Peter is traveling: "Now as Peter went here and there among all the believers, he came down also to the saints living in Lydda." Put simply, Peter is out, on the road, as Pope Francis repeats again today. If we do not get out on the road, if we do not go out of the confines of our habits, if there is no mission, not only can we not experience the joy of the kind of growth, even growth in numbers, which Luke mentions in the first verses we heard, we also risk becoming sterile and dying. This reflection is one that the Christian communities of today need to focus on with urgency. The first episode told by Luke regards the healing of a paralyzed man, named Aeneas, who was living in Lydda. But the second occurs in a different city, Joppa, where Peter goes to visit a woman, Tabitha, who had died. In both situations, Peter repeats Jesus’ own gestures: he tells Aeneas to get up from his bed, and then he takes Tabitha by the hand, after having knelt down to pray, and gives her back to her friends alive. To both Aeneas and Tabitha, Peter says, "Get up." In the text, the same Greek word is used to describe Jesus’ resurrection. Peter is not performing wondrous or spectacular deeds. He patiently sits beside those who are weak and gives them back the dignity of being loved and acknowledged. Like Peter, every Christian community must travel on the roads of the world to help those who are forced into the slavery of loneliness and sadness to rediscover their strength and dignity, and those who have lost their lives to get up and rejoice because they have found them again.
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
