EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Mother of the Lord
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Mother of the Lord
Tuesday, May 10


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 20,17-27

From Miletus he sent for the elders of the church of Ephesus. When they arrived he addressed these words to them: 'You know what my way of life has been ever since the first day I set foot among you in Asia, how I have served the Lord in all humility, with all the sorrows and trials that came to me through the plots of the Jews. I have not hesitated to do anything that would be helpful to you; I have preached to you and instructed you both in public and in your homes, urging both Jews and Greeks to turn to God and to believe in our Lord Jesus. 'And now you see me on my way to Jerusalem in captivity to the Spirit; I have no idea what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit, in town after town, has made it clear to me that imprisonment and persecution await me. But I do not place any value on my own life, provided that I complete the mission the Lord Jesus gave me -- to bear witness to the good news of God's grace. 'I now feel sure that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will ever see my face again. And so on this very day I swear that my conscience is clear as far as all of you are concerned, for I have without faltering put before you the whole of God's purpose.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

After landing at Miletus, the apostle Paul sends for the presbyters of the community of Ephesus to come and meet him. The apostle begins his farewell address to those who will be responsible for the community with the witness of his very life: "You yourselves know how I lived among you." The apostle knows well that "shepherds" must be "examples to the flock." Peter will write this in his first letter: "To tend the flock of God that is in your charge, exercising the oversight, not under compulsion but willingly, as God would have you do it—not for sordid gain but eagerly. Do not lord it over those in your charge, but be examples to the flock"(1 Pt 5: 2-4). Paul is not referring to his behaviour towards the presbyters, but to how he himself lived during his three years of ministry in Ephesus. He does not do this out of pride or a sense of self-promotion, but to give them a concrete example of a pastor. And he does not start by saying what a pastor should "do" but how he or she should "be." And he sums up the essence of the pastor in one word: "servant." He says to the elders, "You yourselves know how I lived among you...serving the Lord with all humility and with tears, enduring the trials that came to me." Paul thus sees his ministry as a "service to the Lord." He does not want to speak about the particular actions a pastor must perform, but his or her way of life: the entire life of the servant should be dedicated to the master. After all, Jesus had spent his entire life for all. He presented himself as "gentle and humble in heart" (Mt 11:29). He has shown us the way, even the way to communicate the Gospel. Indeed, gentleness opens people’s hearts and disposes them to listen to the Gospel and to encounter God. In an apocryphal gospel Jesus says, "I came among you not as one who lies down, but as one who serves, and you have grown in my service as the one who serves." Paul tells them that he will go to Jerusalem, not on a whim, but "as a captive of the Spirit." He does not know what will happen to him, but is aware of the fact that his service to the Lord will bring opposition and trials: he speaks "tribulation" and even mentions death. "Martyrdom" is essential to the Gospel. Albert Schweitzer, the famous Protestant biblical scholar of the last century who went to live in a leper colony in Africa, wrote: "We must again become capable of feeling in ourselves the heroism that there is in Jesus...Only then will our Christianity and our conception of the world rediscover the heroic and be given life by it." Msgr. Romero said that being a "martyr" means "giving one’s own life" for the Lord and for others, whether with blood or in another way. What matters is spending oneself completely to communicate the Gospel.

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