Reading of the Word of God
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.
The child you shall bear will be holy.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
John 5,1-16
After this there was a Jewish festival, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem next to the Sheep Pool there is a pool called Bethesda in Hebrew, which has five porticos; and under these were crowds of sick people, blind, lame, paralysed. One man there had an illness which had lasted thirty-eight years, and when Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had been in that condition for a long time, he said, 'Do you want to be well again?' 'Sir,' replied the sick man, 'I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is disturbed; and while I am still on the way, someone else gets down there before me.' Jesus said, 'Get up, pick up your sleeping-mat and walk around.' The man was cured at once, and he picked up his mat and started to walk around. Now that day happened to be the Sabbath, so the Jews said to the man who had been cured, 'It is the Sabbath; you are not allowed to carry your sleeping-mat.' He replied, 'But the man who cured me told me, "Pick up your sleeping-mat and walk around." ' They asked, 'Who is the man who said to you, "Pick up your sleeping-mat and walk around"? ' The man had no idea who it was, since Jesus had disappeared, as the place was crowded. After a while Jesus met him in the Temple and said, 'Now you are well again, do not sin any more, or something worse may happen to you.' The man went back and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had cured him. It was because he did things like this on the Sabbath that the Jews began to harass Jesus.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
The evangelist John leads us to a pool in Jerusalem called Bethesda (House of Mercy). It was considered a sacred and miraculous place. In fact, at its edge gathered "many invalidsblind, lame, and paralyzed." According to a popular tradition, probably related to the worship of a pagan god of healing, these people gathered around the pool and waited for an angel to stir up the water, convinced that the first person to enter the water would be healed. Beyond this popular tradition, the pool can be seen as an image of the Church, which is a true "house of mercy." Christian tradition has often imagined the community of believers as a fountain of ever living water. There are several beautiful icons of the Eastern tradition that depict Mary at the centre of a fountain, quenching the thirst of the poor and weak. And Saint John XXIII loved to compare the Church to the village fountain where everyone comes to quench his or her thirst. This pool with five porticoes is an example that should inspire our communities. It is not a magic or exoteric place. There always needs to be an angel who intervenes. But for that sick man who had been by the side of that pool, the angel is Jesus himself. As he is passing by, Jesus stops and asks about his condition. He has been sick for thirty-eight years. Today we would call him "chronically" ill, revealing our resignation towards those we say have no hope of being healed. The man was sitting there, waiting for someone, indeed, an angel, to help him. When he sees Jesus stop and ask, "Do you want to be healed?" his heart is rekindled. It is from this new closeness - completely unexpected and freely given - that hope is reborn in that paralyzed man. Love always opens the hearts of those who receive it. When people are alone it is difficult, if not impossible, to heal. And how many people are left alone today in their moment of greatest weakness! With Jesus, the true angel who heals that man of his sickness has arrived. He tells him: "Stand up, take your mat and walk." And so, it happens. And there is a second encounter. The man's heart also needed to be healed. When he met him a second time, Jesus says, "See, you have been made well! Do not sin anymore." We need to meet Jesus again and again in order to be healed to the depths of our hearts. Each one of us should imagine him or herself at the edge of the pool, listening to Jesus speak those same words to us, so that we can stand up from the paralysis of our selfishness and become in turn "angels" for those who need help and comfort.
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
