EVERYDAY PRAYER

Sunday Vigil
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Sunday Vigil
Saturday, May 15


Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

John 16,23b-28

Until now you have not asked anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and so your joy will be complete. I have been telling you these things in veiled language. The hour is coming when I shall no longer speak to you in veiled language but tell you about the Father in plain words. When that day comes you will ask in my name; and I do not say that I shall pray to the Father for you, because the Father himself loves you for loving me, and believing that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world and now I am leaving the world to go to the Father.'

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Over the past days, the Gospel of John has shown us the bond of love that unites the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and also envelops the disciples. The fruit of this "large" love is joy for everyone. Communion with Jesus determines the new condition of the disciples, their being members of God's family, children of the One Father, brothers and sisters of all. Their condition of children allows them to ask the Father for anything and He will give it to them. It is the certainty Jesus confides his disciples before facing his "hour". This certainty is the reason for their "complete" joy. Jesus tells them: "Until now you have not asked for anything in my name." Their faith was still immature; they were looking at Jesus in human terms, according to the world's categories. They had not received the Holy Spirit yet in order to understand Jesus as their saviour. It was necessary to understand that Jesus, with his resurrection, ascended to the right hand of the Father and thus became the Lord of history. From that moment on they could invoke the Father "in the name" of Jesus, that is, with the strength of the intercession of that master who carried their prayer before the Father who sits and in heaven. He promised that he would speak to them more clearly: "'I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I ... will tell you plainly of the Father." The hour is the time from the resurrection onwards. It is also our time. And, indeed, the Gospel still speaks clearly to the entire world today about the mystery of the Father in heaven who sent his Son to save us. Communion with Jesus makes us aware of being part of his very mission: walking along the roads of the world to gather men and women and walk with them towards the Father. Jesus is about to pass from this world to the Father. When he returns to the Father he will no longer be alone, as he was when he descended; he will be accompanied by the disciples of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, whom he acquired with his love till death.

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!