EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Saints and the Prophets
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Saints and the Prophets
Wednesday, June 21


Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

You are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a people acquired by God
to proclaim his marvellous works.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Psalm 112, 1-4.9

1 Praise the Lord!
  Happy are those who fear the Lord,
  who greatly delight in his commandments.

2 Their descendants will be mighty in the land;
  the generation of the upright will be blessed.

3 Wealth and riches are in their houses,
  and their righteousness endures for ever.

4 They rise in the darkness as a light for the upright;
  they are gracious, merciful, and righteous.

9 They have distributed freely, they have given to the poor;
  their righteousness endures for ever;
  their horn is exalted in honour.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The beginning of psalm 112 recalls the beatitude of the believer. The psalmist writes that those who believe “greatly delight” in welcoming the Word of God. Saint Jerome explains that this joy comes from the fact that the believer “does not observe the Lord’s commandments anxiously, but wants to do them, and wants to carry them out, not in a fleeting way but completely.” Indeed, a believer is someone who listens to the Word of God and puts it into practice. He or she listens to it willingly and cherishes it in his or her heart. We need to increase our devotion to Scripture, so that it becomes the book of every believer, the pages that contain the Word of God transmitted through human words. It from this perspective that we can understand the meaning of the beatitude that comes from “fear of the Lord” (v. 1). I mean that the fear of the Lord is also applicable to the veneration that we should have for Holy Scripture. Indeed, they contain the Word of God. It was a great victory for the Second Vatican Council to have put the Bible back in the hands of the faithful. But our devotion for Scripture must grow. “The Church,” we read in Dei Verbum, “has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she venerates the body of the Lord, since, especially in the sacred liturgy, she unceasingly receives and offers to the faithful the bread of life from the table both of God's word and of Christ's body” (21). And believers must be nourished by it every day. Saint Paul reminds Timothy of the importance of the Word of God in the life of the community: “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16). The community – and the individual believer – who are nourished by the Bread of life will receive its strength, “Their descendants will be mighty in the land” (v. 2) and their house will be blessed. It is the blessing of God on the community that gathers the fruit of the missionary commitment to communicate the Gospel of love to all. The disciple who welcomes the Word into his heart becomes, like the Lord, “gracious, merciful, and righteous” (v. 4). And the psalmist continues, “They have distributed freely, they have given to the poor; their righteousness endures forever; their horn is exalted in honour” (v. 9). Love for the poor, we could say, is the direct result of listening to the Word of God. Those who listen to the Lord will have a heart similar to the Lord’s, that is, generous in giving to the poor. The entire tradition of the Church is marked by the special love of Jesus’ disciples for the poor. The experience of the Community of Sant’Egidio has made love of for the poor its “secret,” the reason for its life. Loving the Word of God and loving the poor are two sides of the same coin. It is impossible to separate them. It is a way of living out Christianity that is solidly rooted in Holy Scripture. And it is the most effective way to bear witness to God’s love for all, and particularly for 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!