EVERYDAY PRAYER

Prayer for peace
Word of god every day

Prayer for peace

The prayer for peace is held in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere. Read more

Libretto DEL GIORNO
Prayer for peace
Monday, February 20

The prayer for peace is held in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere.


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 93, 1-2.5

1 The Lord is king, he is robed in majesty;
  the Lord is robed, he is girded with strength.
  He has established the world; it shall never be moved;

2 your throne is established from of old;
  you are from everlasting.

5 Your decrees are very sure;
  holiness befits your house,
  O Lord, for evermore.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

With Psalm 93 begins a series of hymns that continues until Psalm 99 and celebrates “the majesty of God.” The psalmist sings, “The Lord is king, he is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed, he is girded with strength. He has established the world; it shall never be moved; your throne is established from of old; you are from everlasting” (v. 1-2). Because God is the Lord, the world is steady and shall never be moved. Without God the world would fall back into chaos. This conviction lets us read the world and its history with eyes of faith, that is, with at least a spark of God’s own eyes. This way of looking at things also lets us penetrate into the heart of the human experience. According to the cosmology of the Bible, the world is like a block that floats on the primordial ocean, the symbol of the nothingness and the forces that besiege creation. The chaotic waters vainly struggle and rebel, three times “lifting up” their protest against Yahweh’s sovereign dominion (v. 3-4). However he or she may understand it, the believer knows that the world is in God’s hands. God created the world and continues to sustain it. The Lord, who chose the people of Israel for himself, stands beside them and defends them from the assaults of evil. The psalmist’s faith is clear: “the Lord is king” and stronger than evil. Indeed, the Lord holds the world firmly in his hands. Rivers may overflow their banks, but God is stronger; the waters of the ocean may rage, but God rules them. The psalmist seems to be more concerned with creation itself than with human history. But we know that creation, the world, and human history are closely linked in the Bible. Creation is not just the theatre in which human history unfolds, it is part of that history and is caught up in the same destiny as the human race. It can be said that God’s care for creation is another facet of his care for human beings. This is what we see in the vision of the end of history described in Revelations: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth” (21:1). This is the context in which we can understand the responsibility that believers have towards creation. God placed the human race on the summit of creation so that it might keep watch over it and govern it without twisting the rules set in its heart. Men and women should never forget that God is the “king” of creation and they are just its stewards.

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!