Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Psalm 78, 3-8
3 Things that we have heard and known,
that our ancestors have told us.
4 We will not hide them from their children;
we will tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might,
and the wonders that he has done.
5 He established a decree in Jacob,
and appointed a law in Israel,
which he commanded our ancestors
to teach to their children;
6 that the next generation might know them,
the children yet unborn,
and rise up and tell them to their children,
7 so that they should set their hope in God,
and not forget the works of God,
but keep his commandments;
8 and that they should not be like their ancestors,
a stubborn and rebellious generation,
a generation whose heart was not steadfast,
whose spirit was not faithful to God.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
This is what we read in the first verses of psalm 78. “Give ear, O my people, to my teaching I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old” (v. 1-2). This is how the psalmist begins this psalm that narrates the long history of God’s love for His people. He starts with the liberation of the people of Israel from the slavery of Egypt: “He divided the sea and let them pass through it, and made the waters stand like a heap He split rocks open in the wilderness, and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep Yet they sinned still more against him, rebelling against the Most High in the desert” (v. 13-17). It is a story that is always repeated according to the same pattern: on one side there is God’s love for Israel and on the other, the repeated betrayal of that love by the people. The people of Israel only remember the Lord when they fall again into slavery. Only then do they turn back to the Lord. And the Lord, who is truly patient, once again comes down to help his people. It is a story which we have all directly experienced. The Lord’s love is faithful; it accompanies, forgives, and saves. We could say that the Lord’s love for his people is unbreakable. The psalmist exhorts his listeners to remember this salvation story and retell it: “Things that we have heard and known, that our ancestors have told us, we will not hide them from their children” (v. 3-4). He does not ask us to be faithful to the covenant with God, but at least to remember God’s covenant with us, which is unbreakable. We have to communicate this strong and unbreakable love from generation to generation. Of course we also remember our sins, so as not to repeat them. And they are many. The psalmist names rebellion, grumbling, lack of trust, forgetfulness, avidity, insatiability, duplicity, and disloyalty. But above all the he invites his listeners to remember the Lord’s deeds, which have accompanied the people of Israel and saved them from destruction. The Holy Scriptures are nothing other than the story of God’s love for his people. Remembering this story of love is not remembering things past. It means reliving them in the present. This is it what it means to listen to Holy Scripture. Each time we listen to the pages of Scripture, we are welcomed into them so that we might relive them. Gregory the Great loved to say that Scripture grows with the person who reads it. Listening to this psalm helps us better understand the mystery of God’s love. Even though God sees and punishes the obstinacy of sin, God is always faithful to his people. It seems like God cannot help but love us. The Lord’s love, of which forgiveness is an integral part, will always triumph over our sin. We are asked to at least let the Lord seek us.
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
