EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Mother of the Lord
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Mother of the Lord
Tuesday, February 28


Reading of the Word of God

Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory

The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.
The child you shall bear will be holy.

Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory

Psalm 50, 5-8.14.23

5 ‘Gather to me my faithful ones,
  who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!’

6 The heavens declare his righteousness,
  for God himself is judge.

7 ‘Hear, O my people, and I will speak,
  O Israel, I will testify against you.
  I am God, your God.

8 Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you;
  your burnt-offerings are continually before me.

14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
  and pay your vows to the Most High.

23 Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honour me;
  to those who go the right way
  I will show the salvation of God.’

 

Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory

Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.

Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory

The liturgy proposes psalm 50 to us again today to help us understand the passage from Sirach, which recalls the unbreakable bond between the worship of God and love for justice and giving alms to the poor. The psalm, which has a liturgical character, helps us understand the falsity of worshiping the Lord when daily life is marked by injustice and selfishness. It is an issue that runs through the entire Bible, both the Old Testament and the New. We only need to think of the parable of the Good Samaritan, in which Jesus harshly condemns the priest and the Levite – representatives of the worship rituals – who do not stop and help the half-dead man even though they saw him. The psalmist imagines God who calls for an assembly to be gathered: “Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!” (v. 5). The Lord sees from heaven the behaviour of his faithful ones, which he cannot stand. In the preceding verse, the psalmist already sings, “Our God comes and does not keep silence” (v. 3). And this is what the Lord says to his faithful gathered before him: “Hear, O my people, and I will speak, O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God. Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; your burnt-offerings are continually before me” (v. 7-8). But the Lord cannot stand the distance between exterior worship and the disconnection from his heart and consequently from his mercy. In the verses that immediately follow his says clearly, “I will not accept a bull from your house, or goats from your folds. For every wild animal of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills…If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and all that is in it is mine.” (9-10). The Lord, who loves his people freely, cannot stand those who try to “buy” him with rituals and offerings. The Lord wants his children’s love; he wants them to rely on him; he wants their trust. That is why he solemnly repeats, “I am God, your God.” Behind this affirmation lies the entire history of salvation that God has worked for his people. That is why the people of believers can only receive from God, not give; they can only depend, not pay; they can only obey, not claim. Consequently, true worship does not consist of standing before God with the attitude of those who boast of their merits, or worse, of those who claim salvation. The people of believers – and each faithful person – stands before the Lord and thanks and praises the Lord for the many good things they have received. The psalmist says, “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving” (v. 14). God cannot stand worship that is proven false by life. In the following verses, the psalmist clarifies that worship without love is not just a question of a lack of faith, but true wickedness: “What right have you to recite my statutes…For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you” (v. 16). God’s lordship is recognized by worship that is accompanied by mercy. The psalmist has God say, “Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honour me; to those who go the right way I will show the salvation of God” (v. 23). The apostle John’s statement is a clear commentary on this psalm, “Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars” (1 Jn 4:20). Charles de Foucault wrote: “The great teaching from this psalm us that we should not honour God with material pomp, but through love and prayer that comes from the heart. The pomp of worship can be good and right, but it is not the foundation of the worship we should offer God; it must come from our hearts, our lives, and our love.”

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!