EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Church
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Church
Thursday, December 1


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

Psalm 118, 1.8-9.19-21.25-27

1 O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
  his steadfast love endures for ever!

8 It is better to take refuge in the Lord
  than to put confidence in mortals.

9 It is better to take refuge in the Lord
  than to put confidence in princes.

19 Open to me the gates of righteousness,
  that I may enter through them
  and give thanks to the Lord.

20 This is the gate of the Lord;
  the righteous shall enter through it.

21 I thank you that you have answered me
  and have become my salvation.

25 Save us, we beseech you, O Lord!
  O Lord, we beseech you, give us success!

26 Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
  We bless you from the house of the Lord.

27 The Lord is God,
  and he has given us light.
  Bind the festal procession with branches,
  up to the horns of the altar.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

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

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Psalm 118 is a hymn of thanksgiving to God on behalf of Israel for having been liberated from its enemies. Jewish worship incorporates this psalm into the autumn festival of Booths, which commemorates Israel’s wandering in the desert. The psalm opens with a litany of invitations to praise the Lord: “O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever” (v. 1-4). Once again the psalm invites us to sing of God’s mercy. Israel’s God seems not to be able to be without us, without bending down to us, without seeking us out, without defending us from our enemies and rescuing us from defeat. The psalmist underlines that not only is this mercy free, but also “eternal.” Though we easily betray the Lord and our lives are so weak, the psalm invites us to contemplate and rejoice for the eternal mercy of God: “God’s steadfast love endures forever.” The psalmist recounts his experience: out of distress he cried out to the Lord and the Lord rescued him (v. 5); warring nations surrounded him like bees and flared up like a fire of thorns, but he defeated all of them in the name of the Lord (v. 10-12); the Lord tested him severely, but he did not hand him over to death (v. 18). Numerous times he interrupts himself to proclaim his faith in the Lord: “The Lord is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation” (v. 14). Again, he sings, “With the Lord at my side I do not fear. What can mortals do to me?” (v. 6). He also very wisely asserts, “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to put confidence in mortals; it is better to take refuge in the Lord than to put confidence in princes” (v. 8-9). We find genuine safety only in the Lord whose love endures forever. However, in our dullness we all too frequently fail to recognize the Lord’s love; we even disregard it and push it away. However, God does not fail to send us signs of His love. Rather than recognize these signs, we distance ourselves from and chase them away because we have little faith and are blinded by our pride. The psalmist warns us, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone” (v. 22). Jesus took up this metaphor and applied it to himself, and still today unfortunately he is rejected and thrust aside. And yet, he remains the cornerstone chosen by God to build a new people capable of loving. Singularly, this psalm closes with a series of acclamations that were taken up by the Gospel to describe Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem: “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” (v. 26). The cornerstone had been accepted for the edification of the New Jerusalem, about which Saint Ephraim sings, “Blessed are your gates thrown open, your wide open atriums, so that all of us may find a place. On your streets all of the nations sing. The Gentiles, the people with hard hearts and hearts of stone, praise and hail the Stone rejected by the builders, but which has become the chief cornerstone. Moved by the Stone, all of the stones cry out.”

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