Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I am the good shepherd,
my sheep listen to my voice,
and they become
one flock and one fold.
.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Jeremiah 31,31-34
'Look, the days are coming, Yahweh declares, when I shall make a new covenant with the House of Israel (and the House of Judah), but not like the covenant I made with their ancestors the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt, a covenant which they broke, even though I was their Master, Yahweh declares. No, this is the covenant I shall make with the House of Israel when those days have come, Yahweh declares. Within them I shall plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. Then I shall be their God and they will be my people. There will be no further need for everyone to teach neighbour or brother, saying, "Learn to know Yahweh!" No, they will all know me, from the least to the greatest, Yahweh declares, since I shall forgive their guilt and never more call their sin to mind.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Jeremiah began his prophetic activity because he was called by God to this mission. The Lord made him a messenger of the deportation of the people to Babylon, a calamity that had to be understood in the light of God’s plan and not according to human logic. It was a difficult mission, like that of any prophet, and yet indispensable. The prophet - indeed every believer - is called by God not to think about their own future or their own plans, but "to build and to plant" (1:10) a new people. Now is the time of reconstruction (31:28). Ecclesiastes wisely warns, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven" (3:1). The prophet knows that farmers will return to work the fields and flocks will graze tranquilly. But, the prophet’s words focus on a central event in the lives of the nations, "a new covenant" (v. 31). The Lord resumes with renewed commitment the alliance made in the desert, made with the fathers, so that it may be solidified and be a sign for all peoples of the link between God and creation. The previous alliance had been broken by the people’s infidelity. This time the commandment of love will not be an external norm, engraved on tablets of the law, but it will be a word engraved on the heart, not written on stone but sealed in flesh. It is a commitment of an inner alliance involving the totality of believers and of the whole people. Only in this way, with a new interiority, can we defeat the easy temptations to remain closed in upon ourselves losing sight of the utopia of a new world that the Lord, through his people, wants to achieve for all nations. The new covenant is not a series of new rules and precepts. It is, however, a deep bond of love between God and his people to fulfil his dream in the world. And the dream is contained in the double commandment of love that Jesus came to establish with the new and eternal covenant. He will say to his people: "On these two commandments (to love God and love your neighbour) hang all the law and the prophets" (Mt 22:40). The disciple, "from the smallest to the largest," (v. 34), is called to build the civilization of love, the new alliance that excludes no one, embracing all of humanity, starting from the poorest.
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
