EVERYDAY PRAYER

Liturgy of the Sunday
Word of god every day

Liturgy of the Sunday

Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Memorial of the apostle Thomas. He confessed Jesus as his Lord and, according to tradition, witnessed him all the way to India.
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Libretto DEL GIORNO
Liturgy of the Sunday
Sunday, July 3

Homily

Last Sunday the Gospel of Luke placed us in the context of Jesus’ journey towards Jerusalem. Although we are still following the rhythms of our own lives - perhaps already on vacation - each one of us is taken by the Lord and drawn into his journey. We are not the teachers - we are not the ones who choose the destination - but nonetheless it is an extremely engaging journey. This Sunday the evangelist places us among the seventy-two disciples Jesus sent out. "After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go" (v. 1). It is important to reflect for a moment on the number seventy-two. It is not a simple quantity. According to an ancient Hebrew tradition there were seventy-two nations in the world. It is as if to say that from the very beginning the horizons of the Gospel stretched to encompass all peoples, all nations, and all cultures. As he takes the first steps of his journey, Jesus already can see all the peoples of the world in front of him, and he sends his disciples to them. No one should be excluded from the proclamation of the Gospel. Pentecost, when all the nations under heaven "in [their] own languages heard them speaking about God’s deeds of power" (Acts 2:11), begins right here, as Jesus takes his first steps. With his eyes turned to the ends of the earth, Jesus tells the disciples, "The harvest is plentiful." No one is excluded from his gaze and his worry. Faced with this great multitude he sadly adds, "but the labourers are few" (v. 2).
Yes, there is a disproportion between the world’s expectations and the small number of disciples. But the disproportion is not just numerical. There is a deeper problem that has to do with the quality of the proclamation. I believe that this is the challenge we have to accept. In leavening dough the quantity of the yeast is doubtlessly important, but it is more important that the yeast actually be yeast. That is the real problem - the quality of the yeast. In another part of the Gospel we read, "If salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?" (Mt 5:13). The seventy-two disciples were numbered for as many nations. Perhaps there are too few of us, and we certainly have to grow numerically. But the crux of the problem is not the number but the quality. It is not that we are too few; it is that we are not yeasty enough, not salty enough, not light enough. That is why people around us keep living as if God did not exist. The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers labour too little, and they are all caught up in their own problems and worries. For the most part they are bent on saving themselves, ploughing their own little fields, and carving out their own small quiet space. Certainly everyone needs quiet. And who does not need quiet? But how can we be good workers?
The Gospel gives us an answer. In front of such a plentiful harvest, why does Jesus send the disciples two by two? Would it not have made more sense to send them one by one and so have doubled the places where the Gospel was announced? Gregory the Great gives a beautiful explanation of this passage. The great bishop writes that Jesus sent the disciples two by two so that the first thing they preached would be their love for one another and so that their lives would give witness to their words. This is what it means to be yeast, salt, and light. "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (Jn 13:35). Communion between brothers and sisters is the first thing that we preach. But where is our communion? Where is our concern so that we grow like a family? Are we not instead distant from one another? Is not every one off on his or her own? But "two by two" means being open to everyone. Yes, evangelisation begins with love for one another and leads to a love that grows wider and wider.
Is not the Jerusalem towards which we are travelling with the Lord the city where all men and women, all nations, and all peoples will find each other gathered in one family? This is why today we are more scandalized than ever by the "race" towards factionalism, dismemberment, opposition, fratricidal conflict, and war between ethnic groups that sometimes takes on religious dimensions. For the Church and for every Christian community Jesus’ words ring more true than ever, "See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves" (v. 3). It is not easy for a "lamb" to change the life of a "wolf." It is not easy to defeat individualism and self-interest. It is not natural to destroy the idols of arrogance, competition, and strength in order to affirm the lordship of God. And it is even harder if the "lambs" have to work with "no purse, no bag, no sandals." Their only strength is found in the peace given by the Lord and in the mutual love that manifests it. This is the only strength the disciples have. Someone called it the "weak force" of faith; it is weak because it has no weapons or arrogance, and yet it is strong enough to move people’s hearts.
The last few lines of the Gospel passage confirm this fact, "The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!’" (v. 17). To which Jesus replied, "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you" (v. 18-19). There is a power that is given to the disciples: the power to love God and men and women at all cost and above all things. This is the only great and strong wealth that the Christian has.

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