EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Poor
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Poor
Monday, May 22


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

John 15,26-16,4

When the Paraclete comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who issues from the Father, he will be my witness. And you too will be witnesses, because you have been with me from the beginning. I have told you all this so that you may not fall away. They will expel you from the synagogues, and indeed the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is doing a holy service to God. They will do these things because they have never known either the Father or me. But I have told you all this, so that when the time for it comes you may remember that I told you. I did not tell you this from the beginning, because I was with you;

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

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

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Once again, the Lord reassures his friends: it is true that they will soon be separated, but that does not mean that they will be any further away from him. In fact, the love that has bound them and led them together all the way to Jerusalem will not end. After the dark times of his passion and death Jesus will gather them around him once he is risen. It is the new condition of being risen that permit Jesus to remain always with his disciples wherever they will go. This is to say that the love born from Jesus—Christian love—does not end with the end of physical proximity. After Easter Jesus himself asks his disciples to confirm each other in faith and to testify to the world about the love that has united them to Jesus and that continues to unite them and guide them along the way. The love that the Lord pours in their hearts comes from above; it is not the fruit of their efforts. It is a unique gift from God and it is an extraordinary love: it grows when it is lived out and it diminishes, to the point of vanishing, when it is not practiced. And the Spirit of love that comes from the Father and is transmitted to the disciples by the Son gives rise to the friendship and affection that tie them together with strong and stable bonds. The Lord explains that this testimony of love can also give rise to opposition and hostility from those who do not know it, to the point of putting the disciples’ very lives in danger. But the disciples should not lose faith in their Teacher, because Jesus does not leave his followers without resources: “I have said these things to you to keep you from stumbling.” The Lord does not abandon his friends to their fate. Nonetheless, the disciples have a great responsibility: they must communicate the Gospel of gratuitous love to the world in order to keep it far from evil and sin and to help it find the way of salvation.

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