EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Mother of the Lord
Word of god every day

Memory of the Mother of the Lord

Memorial of Martin Luther King, killed in Memphis in the United States in 1968. With him we remember all those who hunger and thirst for justice. Read more

Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Mother of the Lord
Tuesday, April 4

Psalmody

Psalm 7

Antiphon

O Lord, arise and bring justice.

Lord God, I take refuge in you.
From my pursuer save me and rescue me,

lest he tear me to pieces like a lion
and drag me off with no one to rescue me.

Lord God, if my hands
have done wrong,

If I have paid back evil for good,
I who saved my unjust oppressor;

Then let my foe pursue me and seize me,
let him trample my life to the ground
and lay my soul in the dust.

Lord, rise up in your anger,
rise against the fury of my foes;
my God, awake! You will give judgement.

Let the company of nations gather round you,
taking your seat above them on high.

The Lord is judge of the peoples.
Give judgement for me, Lord;
I am just and innocent of heart.

Put an end to the evil of the wicked!
Make the just stand firm,
you who test mind and heart, O just God!

God is the shield that protects me,
who saves the upright of heart.

God is a just judge slow to anger;
but he threatens the wicked every day,

For men who will not repent, God will sharpen his sword;
he has braced his bow and taken aim.

For them he has prepared deadly weapons;
he barbs his arrows with fire.

Here is one who is pregnant with malice,
conceives evil and brings forth lies.

He digs a pitfall, digs it deep;
and in the trap he has made he will fall.

His malice will recoil on himself;
on his own head his violence will fall

I will thank the Lord of his justice;
I will sing to the Lord, the Most High.

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