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
Luke 7,31-35
'What comparison, then, can I find for the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children shouting to one another while they sit in the market place: We played the pipes for you, and you wouldn't dance; we sang dirges, and you wouldn't cry. 'For John the Baptist has come, not eating bread, not drinking wine, and you say, "He is possessed." The Son of man has come, eating and drinking, and you say, "Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners." Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Jesus wanders: "To what then will I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like?" Turned to those who were listening to him Jesus says that they are like those children that "sitting in the square, yell to each other: We have played the flute and you have not danced, we have sung a song of lament and you have not cried!" They are spoiled children who react in an instinctive and egocentric way. It is their "I" that counts and nothing else. The Gospel should return to resounding everywhere in order to free the hearts. The apostle Peter intuited this when, after the descent of the Holy Spirit, he turned toward the crowd that had gathered before the cenacle and said: "Save yourselves from this perverse generation" (Acts 2:40). The point of this is not that Jesus first and Peter are taking a pessimistic position. The Gospel frees us from the slavery of ourselves and gives us the ability to look beyond, to recognize the plan of God for the world, to gather the "signs of the times," those signs that God inscribes in human history so that we can help to direct it toward the good. Unfortunately, we often fold in on ourselves. This is why we see evermore irritated or whining attitudes grow. The "wisdom" that God came to give us is another: to take part in his grand design of love for the world. There is no more time to lose in complaining or getting irritated: we must commit our time and strength to build up the Kingdom that Jesus came to give men and women of every generation.
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
