Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I am the good shepherd,
my sheep listen to my voice,
and they become
one flock and one fold.
.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Psalm 116, 1-9
1 I love the Lord, because he has heard
my voice and my supplications.
2 Because he inclined his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
3 The snares of death encompassed me;
the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
I suffered distress and anguish.
4 Then I called on the name of the Lord:
O Lord, I pray, save my life!’
5 Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;
our God is merciful.
6 The Lord protects the simple;
when I was brought low, he saved me.
7 Return, O my soul, to your rest,
for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.
8 For you have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling.
9 I walk before the Lord
in the land of the living.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Psalm 116 opens with a profession of love and trust in God on the part of the psalmist, probably a prayer offered in the Temple before the assembly to give thanks to the Lord for a great gift received: “I will lift the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD. I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people” (v. 13-14). Christian tradition adopted these words to refer to the Eucharist, the apex of Christian prayer in which the community celebrates Easter, the mystery of the death and resurrection of the Lord. The expressions used by the psalmist are intense; he begins by declaring his love for the Lord for he is always heard: “I love the Lord, because he has heard my voice and my supplication” (v. 1). His love is strong and passionate, as should be that of every believer for the Lord. There are no alternatives to love when it comes to a relationship with God, because the Lord is the one who first loved and continues to be passionate about humankind. The psalmist recounts his past, but only briefly, so as to stress God’s passionate care for him: God has always heard him and answered his prayers. Moreover, when his life was in danger, or when he was suffering and sad, he turned faithfully to the Lord: “O Lord, I pray, save my life” (v. 4). And the Lord heard him. Also, in moments of interior disorientation or abandonment, when others wanted to deceitfully trap him, he always had faith in the Lord: “I kept my faith, even when I said, I am greatly afflicted’; I said in my consternation, everyone is a liar’” (v.10-11). These situations described by the psalmist are not rare. They recur frequently in the lives of men and women as well as in our life. Precisely for this reason, he exhorts believers never to cease lifting up their prayer to the Lord: to those who turn to him, the Lord never tires of listening and delays not in intervening. The psalmist stresses this with an observation of a truth that traverses the entirety of Scripture: “When I was brought low, he saved me” (v. 6). The Lord listens to the cry of the poor and always intervenes to help them. All pages of the Bible urge us to put our trust in the Lord. Only God suffices for the believer. Thus the psalmist exhorts his soul to be calm: “Return, O my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you” (v.7). Enemies can come closer and try to make the just fall and evil prevail, but the Lord does not allow evil to triumph over those who trust in him. This is the experience of the believers of yesterday and today. It is also our experience when we trust in the Lord. Therefore we can sing, “For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling” (v.8). With this trust the psalmist concludes: “I walk before the Lord in the land of the living” (v.9).
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!
For the sick, in memory of the dead, for peace
