IMÁDSÁG NAPRÓL NAPRA

Memory of the Saints and the Prophets
Isten igéje minden nap

Memory of the Saints and the Prophets

Prayer for unity of Christians. Particular memory of the ancient Churches of the East (Syrian Orthodox, Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopian, Syro-Malabar) and the Assyrian Church Többet

Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Saints and the Prophets
Wednesday, January 20

Prayer for unity of Christians. Particular memory of the ancient Churches of the East (Syrian Orthodox, Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopian, Syro-Malabar) and the Assyrian Church


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

Mark 3,1-6

Another time he went into the synagogue, and there was a man present whose hand was withered. And they were watching him to see if he would cure him on the Sabbath day, hoping for something to charge him with. He said to the man with the withered hand, 'Get up and stand in the middle!' Then he said to them, 'Is it permitted on the Sabbath day to do good, or to do evil; to save life, or to kill?' But they said nothing. Then he looked angrily round at them, grieved to find them so obstinate, and said to the man, 'Stretch out your hand.' He stretched it out and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and began at once to plot with the Herodians against him, discussing how to destroy him.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

It is Saturday, and Jesus, as his custom was, went to the synagogue for prayer. There, he met a man with a serious handicap to his arm. The apocryphal gospel according to the Hebrews, puts on the lips of the man the following prayer: "I was a mason, I earned my living by the labour of my hands; O Jesus, I pray you to heal me so that I do not have to beg shamefully for my bread.". As soon as Jesus saw this man wounded in the hand, he was moved. This always happened to him whenever he encountered the sick and the weak. The Pharisees, on the opposite, who were not at all interested in the man's impairment, sensed that something would happen. Jesus never remains still in front of the pain of the people. Jesus knew well he must fulfil the will of the Father and so he turned to the man and ordered him: "Stretch out your hand!" The man obeyed the word of Jesus and extended his hand. He was healed. Obedience to the Gospel always leads to healing; it makes us regain what we have lost because of sin or our frailty. After all, Jesus came so that every human being may be no longer a slave of evil, but may share in the new horizon of God that is the fullness of life. That man was healed and able to return to ordinary life. Healing does not occur so that people remain prisoners of themselves - the meaning of the "withered" hand is also a hand used only to help themselves - but healing this hand is done so that it may be at the service of others, for the common good of all. The hand is healed, in fact, "to give a hand" - as we say - to those in need. This is why Jesus did not violate the Sabbath, as the Pharisees accused him. With this healing, the true "Sabbath" (i.e., the day of God) enters into the life of men and women: creation reaches its fulfilment in that man. Whenever the mercy and salvation of God touch the lives of human beings, the "Sabbath" of God is fulfilled: the feast of love and fullness of life.

ISTEN SZAVA MINDEN NAP: A NAPTÁR

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!

ISTEN SZAVA MINDEN NAP: A NAPTÁR