Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Romans 15, 22-32
That is why I have been so often prevented from coming to see you;
now, however, as there is nothing more to keep me in these parts, I hope, after longing for many years past to visit you, to see you when I am on the way to Spain-
and after enjoying at least something of your company, to be sent on my way with your support.
But now I have undertaken to go to Jerusalem in the service of the holy people of God there,
since Macedonia and Achaia have chosen to make a generous contribution to the poor among God's holy people at Jerusalem.
Yes, they chose to; not that they did not owe it to them. For if the gentiles have been given a share in their spiritual possessions, then in return to give them help with material possessions is repaying a debt to them.
So when I have done this, and given this harvest into their possession, I shall visit you on the way to Spain.
I am sure that, when I do come to you, I shall come with the fullest blessing of Christ.
Meanwhile I urge you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, that in your prayers to God for me you exert yourselves to help me;
praying that I may escape the unbelievers in Judaea, and that the aid I am carrying to Jerusalem will be acceptable to God's holy people.
Then I shall come to you, if God wills, for a happy time of relaxation in your company.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Paul wants to extend his mission past Rome to Spain, as if to reach the “very ends” of the earth. Perhaps Asia is for us what Spain was for Paul. Christianity is still a little seed in Asia, while the people who are waiting there are many. The urgency of communicating the Gospel was truly devouring the apostle. His example questions the indolence of many of the Christian communities of today and shakes the laziness that takes hold of many disciples of the Lord. The apostle’s decision not to close himself in to one territory shows how he resists any form of self-referentiality, any form of closure, in order to take on the universal horizons that are characteristic of the Gospel. Every Christian community needs to live with the same tension that Paul felt, pushing him to communicate the Gospel to the very ends of the earth. This certainly does not mean forgetting where we come from. The fact that Paul writes so much about the aid that he needs to bring to Jerusalem is not insignificant: he speaks of it as something we “owe” the city from which we received the faith. It is a debt that we need to feel with even more urgency today. The apostle’s gesture is an example of that communion between Christian communities that we need to revive today more than ever.
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
