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
Matthew 11,28-30
'Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Jesus has before his eyes those crowds of the poor made up of the "little ones," those who are given no consideration, but rather are cast aside because they are thought to be a burden. The Gospels often emphasize the compassion the Lord has for these crowds. And they note that often it is Jesus himself who goes towards them. What an important teaching for us! How can we not think of the countless crowds of today, who are left to themselves and pushed to the edges of society? They are crowds of children and young people, adults and the elderly. They are the ones Jesus has compassion on, and it is to them that Jesus speaks the words of this Gospel. "Come to me," says Jesus. He sees the crowd groaning because of the difficult condition in which they live for the burden imposed on them by whoever happens to be in power. Here the Gospel is referring to the burdens the Pharisees had placed on them, without giving a thought to love or mercy. On the shoulders of these "little ones," these rules become like the hard, knotty yoke that peasants put on the neck of draft animals. The Law, which was given for salvation and life (Ez 20:13), had been transformed into an unbearable burden of minute rules that no one fulfilled, not even the teachers of the law. Moved by these crowds, Jesus calls them to him and promises comfort. It is the rest given by the one who came to serve, to help, to love, and to save, not to think about himself and his own gain. In contrast to the "yoke" of the Pharisees, Jesus proposes his own "yoke," which is "easy and light." It is easy to carry. Not because it is not demanding. On the contrary, Jesus is proposing a high ideal. He preaches a Gospel that demands radical choices and total dedication. And yet this "yoke" is easy, because it is truly close to humanity, just as Jesus himself is close to men and women, to the small and the weak. The Gospel of love is demanding, but it is a sweet weight that saves. Jesus gives himself as an example: "Learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart." Jesus' yoke is Jesus himself and his Gospel. It is not an external weight that is put on our shoulders. The yoke is the Gospel of love that the Lord places in our hearts. In his first letter, John, the disciple of love, wrote, "His commandments are not burdensome" (5:3). Jesus' love is what saves and sustains us.
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
