Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter. Read more
Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter.
Reading of the Word of God
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
1 Corinthians 4, 14-21
I am writing all this not to make you ashamed but simply to remind you, as my dear children;
for even though you might have ten thousand slaves to look after you in Christ, you still have no more than one father, and it was I who fathered you in Christ Jesus, by the gospel.
That is why I urge you to take me as your pattern
and why I have sent you Timothy, a dear and faithful son to me in the Lord, who will remind you of my principles of conduct in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church.
On the assumption that I was not coming to you, some of you have become filled with your own self-importance;
but I shall be coming to you soon, the Lord willing, and then I shall find out not what these self-important people say, but what power they have.
For the kingdom of God consists not in spoken words but in power.
What do you want then? Am I to come to you with a stick in my hand or in love, and with a spirit of gentleness?
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Paul passionately asserts his role as father of the community, knowing well that unity is not simply the fruit of the good will of individuals, but comes from acknowledging the paternity of the preaching of the Gospel. Guided by the Spirit, the apostle placed the Gospel of Jesus at the foundation of the Christian family of Corinth. This is why he reminds them, ?I became your father through the gospel.? He is still the guarantor of their communion and, consequently, of their unity. Thus, he can add, ?Be imitators of me,? not as a moral exhortation, but to point out a vital spiritual bond. This imitation is understood in terms of the relationship of Paul with Christ, as he will write later in the First Letter to the Corinthians: ?Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ? (11:1). The Christians of Corinth need to bind themselves to Christ as Paul has. Disregarding or forgetting this relationship means removing the very foundation of the life of the Christian community. There is a relationship of being father and children between the members of the Christian community that is part of the very structure of the Church. It is in this sense that Paul sent Timothy to the Corinthians to continue his preaching. The disciple who has the responsibility of preaching should ?remind? the community of the Gospel that was announced to them and keep it alive in the community?s life so that it will not be dissipated or rendered bland and tasteless. This is the living meaning of the Tradition of the Church. If those who announce the Gospel should feel a ?paternal? responsibility for ensuring that the Word of God is generated in the hearts of those who listen, those who listen are called to live as children of the Gospel. Pride never stops insinuating itself into our hearts and urging us to abandon our status as children by inspiring the thought that spiritual growth should lead to a sort of prideful self-sufficiency. The truth is just the opposite: the disciple grows interiorly in so far as he or she becomes more aware that he or she is a child. This is why Cyprian of Carthage said, ?One cannot have God as father if he does not have the Church as Mother.? In being children of the Church, the disciples find their ?power,? their strength.
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
