Memorial of Saints Cosmas and Damien, Syrian martyrs (+303ca). The tradition remembers them as doctors who took care of the sick for free. Special memory of those who dedicate their lives to the treatment and healing of the sick. Read more
Memorial of Saints Cosmas and Damien, Syrian martyrs (+303ca). The tradition remembers them as doctors who took care of the sick for free. Special memory of those who dedicate their lives to the treatment and healing of the sick.
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 9,1-6
He called the Twelve together and gave them power and authority over all devils and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. He said to them, 'Take nothing for the journey: neither staff, nor haversack, nor bread, nor money; and do not have a spare tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there; and when you leave let your departure be from there. As for those who do not welcome you, when you leave their town shake the dust from your feet as evidence against them.' So they set out and went from village to village proclaiming the good news and healing everywhere.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The evangelist Luke tells how the twelve were sent to proclaim the kingdom of God and heal the sick. Jesus had already chosen them to be with him (Lk 6:12-16) and now he sends them to carry out his mission, giving them his own authority and power. The evangelist writes, he "gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases." The preaching of the Kingdom of God, the new world that God was bringing into existence through Jesus' deeds, had to be accompanied by signs that demonstrated its power. This is a paradigm that accompanies the work of the disciples of every age, including today. Every Christian community and every disciple is called to join the long line of followers of Jesus to fight the same battle against the power of evil and communicate the Gospel of love everywhere, to the ends of the earth. This mission requires us to strip ourselves of our desire to be the centre of attention in order to become servants of the Gospel in everything, with the same missionary eagerness that led the Twelve to go door to door, village to village, city to city: no one was to be denied the proclamation of the Gospel. Their only wealth was the Gospel. And the Gospel was all they were supposed to communicate, in its purity, without additions or gimmicks. Jesus' disciples must know that the Gospel itself is enough: it is leavening and light that transforms. That is why Jesus orders the Twelve: "Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor moneynot even an extra tunic." Their only wealth and their only power is the Gospel.
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
