Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Mark 4, 35-41
With the coming of evening that same day, he said to them, 'Let us cross over to the other side.'
And leaving the crowd behind they took him, just as he was, in the boat; and there were other boats with him.
Then it began to blow a great gale and the waves were breaking into the boat so that it was almost swamped.
But he was in the stern, his head on the cushion, asleep.
They woke him and said to him, 'Master, do you not care? We are lost!' And he woke up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Quiet now! Be calm!' And the wind dropped, and there followed a great calm.
Then he said to them, 'Why are you so frightened? Have you still no faith?'
They were overcome with awe and said to one another, 'Who can this be? Even the wind and the sea obey him.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Gospel of Mark continues to present Jesus walking through the streets of the world. There is in him the urgency to communicate the Gospel to everyone. For this reason he does not stop in places that may be more secure and reliable. He says to his disciples, “Let us go across to the other side.” The other side in the Gospel of Mark is the pagan world, those who are far from faith in the God of Israel. The disciples would not have gone there alone, as we find it hard to go towards those whom we believe are distant or not suitable to receive the Gospel of Jesus. We all know the temptation to stop along the boundaries that are known to us, to the usual horizons - as religious as they may be. Jesus opens our hearts and our minds from the start. The disciples obey Jesus’ exhortation and go with the boat out to sea, taking the Teacher with them. During the crossing, as often happens in the lake of Galilee, a storm rages. It is easy to read in this notation of the evangelist the many storms of life, the real ones that relate to the many tragedies of existence, not our little agitations that selfishly feel like real storms. The evangelist suggests that we not concentrate on our own storms but to focus our attention on the real ones. And then in the cry of the Apostles we hear the echo of the cry of the peoples torn by war and injustice, or of that of the many men and many women whose lives are overwhelmed by the waves of evil. This cry often also collects the feeling of powerlessness and the resignation of someone who, overwhelmed by the storms of life, ends up believing that the Lord is far away, asleep and not keeping watch over them. It is a cry that Christian communities must face, a cry they must make their own and turn into prayer to the Lord so that, like that time, he can get up, rebuke the winds and the sea saying, “Peace! Be still!” And thus men and women who have been hit hard by evil may reach the other side, that of peace. And we, who are so taken by our own storms, we too with Jesus can reach the shore where many others are waiting for him, with his love and his saving word. It is the great mission entrusted to the Church, to reach everyone so that all may meet Jesus and listen to his word.
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
