EVERYDAY PRAYER

Liturgy of the Sunday
Word of god every day

Liturgy of the Sunday

Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time Read more

Libretto DEL GIORNO
Liturgy of the Sunday
Sunday, June 26

Homily

This Gospel passage shows us Jesus in a decisive moment in his life. In the first verse we read that the days were drawing near in which Jesus would be "taken up" from the world. Faced with the imminence of this event, Jesus "set his face to go to Jerusalem" (literally, he "hardened his face towards Jerusalem"). It was a firm and irrevocable decision. Jesus knew what it meant for him to go up to Jerusalem: his conflict with the religious authorities would ultimately lead to his death. Elsewhere in the Gospel we read about how the disciples were opposed to their Teacher’s decision because they knew the risk he was running. But it was essential for Jesus to preach the Gospel in Jerusalem. A little later he will say, "I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem" (Lk 13:33). At this moment in the Gospel, the evangelist has Jesus start a long pilgrimage towards Jerusalem. It is not a simple literary device. For the evangelist, the journey to Jerusalem is emblematic of the entire life of the disciple: we are all pilgrims travelling towards Jerusalem, the city of peace. The Gospel is talking about the earthly Jerusalem, and how important it would be for the political leaders of today to "set their faces" towards that goal! Every city has a right to peace, and Jerusalem has peace written in its very name. The true goal, however, is the heavenly Jerusalem, the fullness of the kingdom of God.
During Jesus’ journey the Gospel will guide us and help us stay near to him. We can compare the Gospel that is announced to us every Sunday to the mantle that the prophet Elijah threw over Elisha’s shoulders, as we heard in the first reading of today’s liturgy (1 K 19:16.19-21). Elijah encountered Elisha while he was ploughing with twelve pair of oxen; the prophet passed by him and threw his mantel over his shoulders. Scripture notes that Elisha "left the oxen [and] ran after Elijah." Elisha did not want to lose his connection to the prophet. But later Elijah would disappear, and Elisha would be left with the teacher’s mantel. The Gospel will be this mantle for us every Sunday; it will be thrown over our shoulders so that we can run after Jesus. But it will not be a heavy, crushing yoke. Quite the opposite - it is given for our freedom. In the second reading (Gal 5:1.13-18) the apostle Paul makes this clear, "For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery…For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters." And freedom means being able to follow Jesus on his journey.
The two episodes recorded in this Sunday’s Gospel offer a good explanation of this. The first occurs in a Samaritan village, a community hostile to the Jews. When two disciples go to ask the inhabitants of the village to shelter Jesus, they find a firm refusal, and their response is equally firm and implacable, "‘Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?’ But Jesus turns and rebukes them" (v. 54-55). We would have reacted in the same way as the disciples, but Jesus does not agree. The Gospel is foreign to the world’s way of reacting, and it will always be so - luckily! Woe to us if we are to apply the famous law, "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." We would all be blind and toothless. Following the Gospel means welcoming Jesus and his spirit into our lives and standing behind him without any reservations. The words "follow me" bind together the scenes in the Gospel, and they should bind our days to the Lord in the same way.
Following Jesus and binding ourselves to him means that more than a few things have to be unbound, cut, or removed. This is explained to us through the parable in which a father’s funeral and a farewell to the family are denied to the disciples. Jesus does not want to stop acts of mercy and humanity; he wants to clearly affirm the absolute primacy of the Gospel over our lives. And this primacy is not simply the demand of someone who is stronger. Jesus knows that there is no freedom apart from him; either we are free with Jesus or we are slaves of the many masters of the world. There is no other choice. But Jesus wants us to be free, and for this great gift of freedom he is prepared to renounce his own life. This is the ultimate reason for the serious words he speaks at the end of the passage, "No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God" (v. 62).

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