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, March 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

John 5,1-3.5-16

After this there was a Jewish festival, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem next to the Sheep Pool there is a pool called Bethesda in Hebrew, which has five porticos; and under these were crowds of sick people, blind, lame, paralysed. One man there had an illness which had lasted thirty-eight years, and when Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had been in that condition for a long time, he said, 'Do you want to be well again?' 'Sir,' replied the sick man, 'I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is disturbed; and while I am still on the way, someone else gets down there before me.' Jesus said, 'Get up, pick up your sleeping-mat and walk around.' The man was cured at once, and he picked up his mat and started to walk around. Now that day happened to be the Sabbath, so the Jews said to the man who had been cured, 'It is the Sabbath; you are not allowed to carry your sleeping-mat.' He replied, 'But the man who cured me told me, "Pick up your sleeping-mat and walk around." ' They asked, 'Who is the man who said to you, "Pick up your sleeping-mat and walk around"? ' The man had no idea who it was, since Jesus had disappeared, as the place was crowded. After a while Jesus met him in the Temple and said, 'Now you are well again, do not sin any more, or something worse may happen to you.' The man went back and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had cured him. It was because he did things like this on the Sabbath that the Jews began to harass Jesus.

 

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 evangelist John, who will guide our steps for the next few days, brings us to Jerusalem, to the edge of a pool called Bethesda (“house of mercy”). It was considered to be a holy and miraculous place. In fact, around it gathered blind, crippled, lame, and paralyzed people who waited for an angel to stir up the water. The water was not enough. An angel needed to come and stir it up; we could say that the Word of God needed to blow and make that place a true house of mercy. Often Christian tradition has imagined the Church—or, better said, the community of believers—as an ever-open fountain welcoming all, without distinction. There are beautiful icons that depict Mary beside a fountain quenching the thirst of the weak and poor. And John XXIII loved to compare the Church to the village fountain where all could come to quench their thirst. Our communities should be inspired by the example of this pool. It is not a magic place; it always requires the presence of an angel. Yet, a paralytic had been there for thirty-eight years. Today we would call him a “chronic” invalid, using the terminology commonly employed to coldly define those who have no hope of being healed. He was there waiting for someone, an angel, to help him. But he had lost all hope. When Jesus passed by, he looked at the paralytic’s eyes and asked him: “Do you want to be made well?” This was probably the first time someone had stopped to give him any hope. Finally, the paralytic was no longer alone. It is here, with this new closeness, that the man’s hope starts anew. The interest that Jesus has shown him opens the man’s heart, and he responds by telling this unexpected friend about the deep bitterness that has been caused by years of disappointment. When people are alone, it is hard to be healed. And indeed, today there are still many people who are left alone in the moment of their greatest weakness! With Jesus, the true angel has come, the one who moves that man’s - and everyone’s - heart and limbs. He tells him: “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” Perhaps we, too, need to hear these words and move past our egoism so as to become “angels” of those who need help and comfort.

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!