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, June 20


Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

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

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Psalm 146, 1-2.5-9

1 Praise the Lord!
  Praise the Lord, O my soul!

2 I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
  I will sing praises to my God all my life long.

5 Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
  whose hope is in the Lord their God,

6 who made heaven and earth,
  the sea, and all that is in them;
  who keeps faith for ever;

7 who executes justice for the oppressed;
  who gives food to the hungry.
  The Lord sets the prisoners free;

8 the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
  The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
  the Lord loves the righteous.

9 The Lord watches over the strangers;
  he upholds the orphan and the widow,
  but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

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

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The Lord is our only hope. This statement summarizes the entirety of psalm 146, which the liturgy places on our lips today. The psalmist asks his soul to praise the Lord, and to set the example, he affirms that “I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God all my life long” (v. 1-2). God alone saves! The psalmist warns us not to trust in human beings: we will be disappointed. It is easy to place our defence on human things and the logic of this world, thinking that it is “human power” that saves. Isaiah had already warned his readers about putting their security in the hands of the powerful of the earth: “The Egyptians are human, and not God; their horses are flesh, and not spirit. When the Lord stretches out his hand, the helper will stumble, and the one helped will fall, and they will all perish together” (31:3). But blessed are those who trust in the Lord, who entrust their life to Him: “Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob” (v. 5). And the psalmist lists God’s works, which reveal the power of his love for humanity and the blessings they bring to believers. We could say that each work that is listed is like an aspect of God’s wonderful “name.” The psalmist begins by saying that the Lord does justice to every form of oppression, bends down over the hungry, frees the prisoners, makes new light shin in the eyes of the blind, lifts up from the dust those who have fallen and been trodden upon, becomes the protector of the stranger (who lacking the protection of ethnicity) and the defender of the orphan and the widow (the most defenceless categories of people), and pours out his love on the just, while his wrath is kindled against the wicked and he brings their plans to naught. As we listen to these words, we here an almost exact echo of Jesus’ proclamation in the synagogue in Nazareth: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour” (Lk 4:18-19). Every page of the Bible shows a God who chooses the poor as the most beloved part of his creation. This is true from the very beginning, from the pages of Genesis, which show his concern for Abel. God prefers him to Cain, not on a whim and not because the former was better than the latter. God prefers Abel because he was weaker and more fragile (the name Abel means breath, weakness). It is his love for the weak that made the Lord more attentive to Abel. Cain did not understand this and became wicked. Love for the weak is also the reason why the Lord sent his only Son to earth to save us. The apostle Paul reminds us of this, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us, in that while we still were sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:6-8). God’s nature, his very being, includes the choice of the poor as his first friends. That is how God is, Scripture seems to be insisting. And the Church needs to follow in God’s footsteps. The Church is the friend of the poor.

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!