EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Saints and the Prophets
Word of god every day

Memory of the Saints and the Prophets

Memorial of Saint Wenceslaus, venerated as a martyr in Bohemia. Memorial of William Quijano, young Salvadorian man of the Community of Sant'Egidio, killed by the violence of the maras. Read more

Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Saints and the Prophets
Wednesday, September 28

Memorial of Saint Wenceslaus, venerated as a martyr in Bohemia. Memorial of William Quijano, young Salvadorian man of the Community of Sant’Egidio, killed by the violence of the maras.


Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

You are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a people acquired by God
to proclaim his marvellous works.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Job 9,1-12.14-16

Job spoke next. He said: Indeed, I know it is as you say: how could anyone claim to be upright before God? Anyone trying to argue matters with him, could not give him one answer in a thousand. Among the wisest and the hardiest, who then can successfully defy him? He moves the mountains, though they do not know it; he throws them down when he is angry. He shakes the earth, and moves it from its place, making all its pillars tremble. The sun, at his command, forbears to rise, and on the stars he sets a seal. He and no other has stretched out the heavens and trampled on the back of the Sea. He has made the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the Mansions of the South. The works he does are great and unfathomable, and his marvels cannot be counted. If he passes me, I do not see him; he slips by, imperceptible to me. If he snatches his prey, who is going to stop him or dare to ask, 'What are you doing?' And here am I, proposing to defend myself and select my arguments against him! Even if I am upright, what point is there in answering him? I can only plead for mercy with my judge! And if he deigned to answer my citation, I cannot believe he would listen to what I said,

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

What are human beings before God, the creator, the one who sustains the world and orders creation according to his wisdom? Job almost feels crushed by the omnipotence of God: "Who does great things beyond understanding, and marvellous things without number." Even God’s judgments are inscrutable. Human beings can do nothing: "Though I am innocent, my own mouth would condemn me; though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse." Job is not helped by the words of his friend Bildad. His words do not convince Job of his sin, nor do they support him in his difficult dialogue with the Lord. Job’s greatness lies in the fact that he never stops speaking, asking the Lord questions, or trying to find the Lord’s presence by looking for him in history and creation. His words certainly seem to be enclosed by a horizon of mistrust, not leaving any space of God to intervene. Throughout almost the entire book, Job’s prayer seems to be a monologue: Job speaks but God does not answer: He seems distant and incomprehensible. On the other side, his friends are only capable of parroting a short-sighted theology that simply repeats that people are afflicted by evil because of their sin. Nothing seems to escape from cold and ironclad law of divine retribution. Job responds to this cold theology by saying that there is no point in being innocent or guilty in the eyes of a God who does not seemed concerned by the suffering of humanity: "If I wash myself with soap and cleanse my hands with lye, yet you will plunge me into filth, and my own clothes will abhor me." But in the final words of Job’s speech appears the uniqueness of the relationship which ties him to God: "There is no umpire between us, who might lay his hand on us both." Job does not consider God an umpire, a judge who gives a sentence of innocence or guilt, as his friends claim, but his partner, his ally, a friend to whom he speaks. And this makes Job’s drama all the more profound. He never stops speaking with God: his faith is greater than the pain he is suffering.

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