Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Amos 8,4-6.9-12
Listen to this, you who crush the needy and reduce the oppressed to nothing, you who say, 'When will New Moon be over so that we can sell our corn, and Sabbath, so that we can market our wheat? Then, we can make the bushel-measure smaller and the shekel-weight bigger, by fraudulently tampering with the scales. We can buy up the weak for silver and the poor for a pair of sandals, and even get a price for the sweepings of the wheat.' 'On that Day- declares the Lord Yahweh- I shall make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. I shall turn your festivals into mourning and all your singing into lamentation; I shall make you all wear sacking round your waists and have all your heads shaved. I shall make it like the mourning for an only child, and it will end like the bitterest of days. 'The days are coming- declares the Lord Yahweh- when I shall send a famine on the country, not hunger for food, not thirst for water, but famine for hearing Yahweh's word. People will stagger from sea to sea, will wander from the north to the east, searching for Yahweh's word, but will not find it.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
By listening to the Lord, the prophet participates in God's vision for history. And he is called to communicate it to the people to whom the Lord sends him. In this passage, Amos sees the end of a society that was built on wealth and satiation, but did not know how to carry out justice. The rejection of the Word of God, which the prophets never stop proclaiming, always leads to corruption of life. The inhabitants of Samaria, the capital of the Kingdom of Israel, were willing to do anything to increase their wealth. Any means of enrichment became lawful. Even the festivals ("the new moon") and the Sabbath, times consecrated to the Lord, had become opportunities to make money, in complete indifference for the poor and with the only goal of accumulating goods for oneself. The prophetic word admonishes us so that we will not give in to the trickery of wealth, which easily leads us to forget God and despise the poor. The Lord is not interested in men and women who come to him in the rituals of worship but without love for the Lord and for the poor which is its confirmation. The "day of Lord," described with apocalyptic imagery (the darkening of the sun, shadows on the earth) will be terrible: feasts will change into mourning, songs into lamentation, luxurious clothing into sackcloth, and proud heads into shaved scalps. They will even experience the most bitter pain: the mourning for the death of an only son, the extinction of the family. It is important to reflect on the fact that this scenario of death comes with the extinction of the Word of God: people will experience the hunger for the Word of God to find relief, but prophecy will be extinct and that bread will not be able to be found. It is an urgent warning for us to accept the grace of preaching also in this time.
Doa merupakan jantung kehidupan Komunitas Sant'Egidio dan merupakan prioritas yang paling penting. Di penghujung hari, setiap Komunitas Sant'Egidio, besar maupun kecil, akan berkumpul di sekeliling Tuhan untuk mendengarkan sabda-Nya. Sesungguhnya Sabda Allah dan doa merupakan landasan seluruh kehidupan Komunitas. Para rasul tidak bisa tidak selain tetap di sekitar kaki Yesus, seperti yang dilakukan oleh Maria dari Bethani, untuk menerima kasih dan belajar cara-Nya (Fil. 2:5).
Sehingga setiap malam, ketika Komunitas kembali ke kaki Tuhan, Komunitas mengulangi kata-kata dari rasul tak bernama: "Tuhan ajarkanlah kami cara berdoa" Yesus, Sang Guru, terus menjawab: "Ketika kamu berdoa, katakanlah: Abba, Bapa". Hal itu bukanlah satu seruan sederhana. Dengan kata-kata ini, Yesus membiarkan para murid untuk berperan serta dalam hubungan mereka sendiri dengan Bapa. Oleh sebab itu, fakta bahwa sebagai anak-anak Bapa yang bertahta di surga, muncul sebelum kata-kata yang mungkin kita ucapkan. Jadi doa di atas segalanya merupakan cara untuk menjadi manusia. Ini untuk mengatakan bahwa kita anak-anak yang berpaling kepada Bapa dengan iman, dan yakin bahwa hal itu akan didengar.
Yesus mengajar kita memanggil Allah dengan sebutan "Bapa Kami" Tidak hanya "Bapa" atau "Bapaku" Para murid, meskipun mereka berdoa dengan cara mereka, tidak pernah terisolasi tidak juga menjadi yatim; mereka selalu menjadi anggota keluarga Tuhan.
Dalam doa bersama, di samping misteri anak Allah, ada juga misteri persaudaraan, seperti Bapa Gereja mengatakan: "Kamu tidak bisa memiliki Allah sebagai Bapa tanpa memiliki gereja sebagai ibu". Ketika berdoa bersama, Roh Kudus menyatukan para rasul di ruangan atas bersama dengan Maria, Bunda Allah, sehingga mereka dapat memusatkan pandangan mereka kepada wajah Tuhan dan belajar dari Dia rahasia hati-Nya.
Komunitas Sant'Egidio di seluruh dunia berkumpul bersama di berbagai tempat doa dan menghamparkan di hadapan Tuhan harapan dan penderitaan manusia yang lelah dan letih seperti yang di katakan oleh Injil (Mat. 9:37). Dalam kumpulan di masa lalu ini kita bisa melihat jumlah massa yang sangat besar di kota-kota modern ini, jutaan pengungsi yang terus melarikan diri dari negeri mereka, orang miskin yang terpinggirkan ke tepi kehidupan dan mereka yang menantikan seseorang yang akan merawat mereka. Berdoa bersama termasuk di dalamnya tangisan, seruan, permohonan, keinginan bagi damai, penyembuhan dan penebusan manusia di dunia ini. Doa tidak pernah sia-sia, doa terus menerus kepada Tuhan sehingga mengubah kecemasan menjadi harapan, air mata menjadi kegembiraan, putus asa menjadi kebahagiaan, dan kesepian menjadi persatuan. Semoga Kerajaan Allah hadir segera di antara manusia.
