Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
1 Corinthians 15,35-37.42-49
Someone may ask: How are dead people raised, and what sort of body do they have when they come? How foolish! What you sow must die before it is given new life; and what you sow is not the body that is to be, but only a bare grain, of wheat I dare say, or some other kind; It is the same too with the resurrection of the dead: what is sown is perishable, but what is raised is imperishable; what is sown is contemptible but what is raised is glorious; what is sown is weak, but what is raised is powerful; what is sown is a natural body, and what is raised is a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is a spiritual body too. So the first man, Adam, as scripture says, became a living soul; and the last Adam has become a life-giving spirit. But first came the natural body, not the spiritual one; that came only afterwards. The first man, being made of earth, is earthly by nature; the second man is from heaven. The earthly man is the pattern for earthly people, the heavenly man for heavenly ones. And as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so we shall bear the likeness of the heavenly one.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
In order to answer a question about how the resurrection of the body takes place, the apostle uses the example of the seed (the earthly body), which, once it has died, becomes a plant (the risen body). He uses this image to affirm that on the day of the resurrection we will be the same and yet different: we will have our "flesh" but we will be clothed in incorruptibility. We could say that the resurrection is the end of a process that lasts our entire life. None of us can imagine what a risen body is like. But we can get some idea of it from the Gospel stories that narrate the days Jesus spent with the disciples after Easter. The Gospels present the same Jesus who had suffered death on the cross he still bears the mark of the nails and yet he is different: the two disciples of Emmaus did not recognize him, nor did Mary and the other disciples. The recognition of the risen Jesus is signalled only by faith. That is to say that we can only recognize a spiritual body if we are "spiritual" people. Paul suggests that the resurrection requires an interior journey, a transformation of the heart and the mind as well as of the body, a transformation of our attitudes. In fact it is a matter of receiving the "seeds of immortality" in us. We do this by listening to the Gospel, participating in the holy liturgy, living in fraternity, and practicing love. This is how the seed of immortality given to us on the day of our Baptism grows in us: a seed that must be guarded, protected, and cultivated every day. In this sense, our entire life is a struggle between evil, which drags us down, and the Lord’s grace, which works to lift us up towards heaven. And if the cause of death is sin and pride, which reside in our hearts, the resurrection begins when we bind our lives to Christ. The sting of death, Paul affirms, suffers its defeat when we bind ourselves to Jesus. Obviously it is a living bond, formed by our obedience to the Gospel, our commitment to love, and our struggles against our own selfishness. But the apostle adds, "Know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain."
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
