EVERYDAY PRAYER

Palm Sunday
Word of god every day

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday
Memorial of Mary of Clopas who stood near the cross of the Lord with the other women. Prayer for all women in every part of the world who follow the Lord in difficulties and with courage.
We remember Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was killed by the Nazis in the concentration camp of Flossenbürg in 1945.
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Libretto DEL GIORNO
Palm Sunday
Sunday, April 9

Homily

With this holy celebration we are welcomed into the holy week of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And at the beginning of the liturgy, Matthew’s Gospel has proclaimed for us Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem seated on the foal of a donkey. He had never done this before. But the time had come for him to reveal himself as the true pastor of Israel, the king of which the Scriptures spoke: “Lo, your king comes to you…riding on a donkey,” wrote the prophet Zechariah (9:9). The disciples and a growing crowd were accompanying Jesus, spreading their cloaks on the road and waving palm branches. Filled with joy, they sang, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” We too imitated the disciples and the crowd in accompanying Jesus. He once again enters our cities.
The evangelist notes that when Jesus entered Jerusalem, “the whole city was in turmoil.” The same thing happened when Jesus was born. The Gospel always causes turmoil. Surprised by such a festive entourage, the inhabitants of Jerusalem asked, “Who is this?” And the response came from the crowd of disciples of the first and the last that accompanied Jesus. “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee,” they said. Jerusalem heard the proclamation that the prophet Jesus was entering, who came from Nazareth, in distant Galilee. He was entering as a king to free the people of Israel from every form of slavery. We can say: God himself has come down to free his people from the slavery of sin and death.
And ever since then, the Lord has continued to enter into human cities to free them from every kind of slavery. And he does not enter them alone, but with a crowd of disciples who joyfully proclaim the prophet Jesus. Still today Jesus enters our cities with his people, with us his disciples in celebration. Yes, we can say that it is the people of the joy of the Gospel. It is a large crowd of people accompanying the liberator. Jesus does not have the face of a powerful, strong man, but the face of a man who is meek and humble of heart. And he does not enter to affirm his strength or to save himself, but to free men and women from the slavery of sin and death. Indeed, he lifts everyone’s cross on his shoulders, especially the cross of the poor, to carry it to Calvary. The apostle Paul reminds the Philippians of this: “And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” Yes, the cross is the end of Jesus’ journey. He had said it, “It is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem.” And by having us listen to the Gospel of the Entrance and the Gospel of the climb to Calvary one after the other, this Sunday’s liturgy makes us experience the paradox of the joy of communicating the Gospel and the passion of love: there is no separation between mercy and the cross, between love and losing one’s own life, between the good face that enters the city and the suffering face up on the cross.
Over the coming days everything seems to change: there will be no more Hosannas and we will hear the cry of “Crucify him!” There is no more festive crowd, but an angry crowd that chooses Barabbas and insults Jesus. Only one thing does not change: the face of Jesus, which remains good, merciful, and full of love. It is a love that the priests, scribes, and Pharisees do not understand, because they are so full of their cold and merciless religiosity. For them the cross represents the definitive defeat of the prophet from Nazareth. Everything truly seems to be over: Jesus can no longer speak or heal. And everyone mocked him from below the cross: “He saved others; he cannot save himself.” And even the thieves crucified with him did the same.
But on that cross, the Lord revealed the extent of his love for us and for all. It is truly without any limit whatsoever: it is a love that demands that we love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us, and give our lives for all. That death for love tore the veil of the temple in two, shook the earth, broke rocks and rolled back many stones from tombs, Matthew notes. Jesus’ love was beginning to change the world, to change the earth and hearts. The Roman centurion and the soldiers exclaimed, “Truly this man was God’s Son.” Death had not triumphed: God’s love was stronger.
Jesus’ love is the gift of these days. We are so illiterate about this love, so let us invoke it and welcome it into our hearts. It is this love that allows us to keep loving the poor, to remain close to those who have been defeated, to take care of the sick, to console the suffering, to accompany the elderly, and to help the little ones grow up in peace. It is with this love welcomed in our hearts and sown in our cities that we can defeat evil and death and hasten the coming of the kingdom of God. It is the vocation that is given to us once again so that we might no longer live for ourselves, but for the Lord and to communicate his Gospel in our cities and to the ends of the earth.
Let us lift up our eyes from ourselves and fix them on that good and meek face that never stops looking at us. Let us imitate those women, who, unlike the disciples, stayed beside him and never strayed. We will see his eyes, broken with pain but still full of love and mercy for us, for the poor, and for the whole of humanity. This is the particular grace of these days, of this holy week. He will continue to look at us, as the icon of this altar does every day, and he will touch our hearts.

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