Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Jeremiah 24, 1-10
Yahweh gave me a vision: set out in front of the Temple of Yahweh were two baskets of figs. This was after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had led Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, away into exile from Jerusalem, with the chief men of Judah, the blacksmiths and metalworkers, and had taken them to Babylon.
One basket contained excellent figs, like those that ripen first; the other contained very bad figs, so bad they were uneatable.
Yahweh said to me, 'What do you see, Jeremiah?' 'Figs,' I answered, 'the good ones excellent, the bad ones very bad, so bad as to be uneatable.'
Then the word of Yahweh was addressed to me,
'Yahweh, the God of Israel, says this, "As these figs are good, so I mean to concern myself with the welfare of the exiles of Judah whom I have sent from this place to the country of the Chaldaeans.
My eyes will watch over them for their good, to bring them back to this country, to build them up and not to break them down, to plant them and not to uproot them.
I shall give them a heart to acknowledge that I am Yahweh. They will be my people and I shall be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.
As for the bad figs, the figs so bad as to be uneatable-yes, Yahweh says this -- that is how I shall treat Zedekiah king of Judah, his chief men and what is left of Jerusalem, those who remain in this country and those living in Egypt.
I shall make them an object of horror, a disaster, to all the kingdoms of the earth, a thing of shame, a byword, a laughing-stock, a curse, wherever I shall drive them.
Sword, famine and plague I shall send against them until they have vanished from the soil I gave to them and to their ancestors." '
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
History is not a choice between good and evil, made according to human criteria. It is not like fruit, not like the two baskets of figs placed one next to the other: a basket full of sweet figs, like first-ripe figs, and the other full of fruit so bad it cannot be eaten. In order to recognize and identify the signs of the times we must understand the divine will, reading history as God reads and directs it. But appearances can be deceiving. After the first deportation to Babylon, it was easy to conclude that the exiles in the capital of the empire of Nebuchadnezzar were the worst sinners, those rejected by the Lord, the truly guilty ones. Instead, those who remained in Jerusalem, starting with King Zedekiah, felt they were in the right, because the Chaldean king had spared them from deportation. But history moves according to God’s plan and not according to human plans. And the Lord shows his preference for the poor and the afflicted, the persecuted and the imprisoned. Those who were deported to Babylon will have all the blessings, they will return home and will never be uprooted. But those who remained in the country, led by Zedekiah, will be driven out of the land and will never return. As Jesus says, “Many who are first will be last, and the last will be first” (Mt 19: 30). Those who felt secure will not find rest, while the poor, the humble, and the least, will take the first places. The course of history depends on the Lord who leads it in a powerful way, never overbearing but always new. The important thing is to enter into the covenant of love that He offers to his people, founded on a heart that knows and recognizes him as the one Lord to whom our lives should be entrusted. Belonging to God is the source of happiness. Returning to God is the source of every beatitude. As we read in the same prophet Jeremiah: “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel... I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (31:33).
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
