EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Church
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Church
Thursday, October 20


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

Ephesians 3,14-21

This, then, is what I pray, kneeling before the Father, from whom every fatherhood, in heaven or on earth, takes its name. In the abundance of his glory may he, through his Spirit, enable you to grow firm in power with regard to your inner self, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, with all God's holy people you will have the strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth; so that, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond knowledge, you may be filled with the utter fullness of God. Glory be to him whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine; glory be to him from generation to generation in the Church and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

When faced with the revelation of the boundless riches of Christ, Paul "bends his knees before the Father" and prays for the Ephesians. He asks God that the Holy Spirit make them strong in strengthening their inner being. The Spirit is the power of God working in the depths of the heart, the place of choices, decisions and thoughts. It is in the heart that change starts, and it is where Christ descends with his word and his grace. Since the beginning of his preaching Jesus had invited his disciples to interiority: "Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you" (Mt.6:6). Asking the Father for the power of the Spirit means asking for a deeper conformity to Christ, to be guided by the transforming power of his love. The presence of Christ opens the heart and mind to communion with our brothers and sisters. In fact, he urges our heart to live, think, and act as Jesus lived and worked. The substance of this indwelling of Christ is love, "agape", "the infinite horizon toward which we progress." The letter expresses this effectively with the image of a plant (to be rooted) and a building (to be grounded). The apostle prays also that the Ephesian Christians understand "with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth" of the love of Christ. God’s mystery can be understood only in love, only in a life of discipleship and witness lived in community, "with the Saints." The knowledge of the mystery (including listening to the Word) has an essential ecclesial dimension: people share the same truth, and most of all they experience it together. In mutual love brothers and sisters become mediators of the knowledge of Christ. It is in fraternity that the Spirit works for our inner growth. This is why common life with brothers and sisters is essential to know Christ. Paul’s prayer culminates in a final request: to be filled in all the fullness of God. The first part of the letter spoke of the fullness (Pleroma) of the Church filled with the fullness of Christ (1:23). Now believers are called to share in the fullness of God: the Father is the last goal to which Christ wants to take us. After reaching this goal, once he carried us in the bosom of the Father, Christ has finished his work of reconciliation and gives room to the Father so that He may be all in all, as Paul wrote: "When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all"(1 Cor 15:28). The apostle concludes with a word of praise: the unity of humanity is the glory of God, the revelation of His love that will always be abundant, above all our understanding and beyond our expectations. To Him, therefore, the glory "in the church and in Christ Jesus."

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