EVERYDAY PRAYER

Sunday Vigil
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Sunday Vigil
Saturday, January 13


Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Mark 2,13-17

He went out again to the shore of the lake; and all the people came to him, and he taught them. As he was walking along he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, 'Follow me.' And he got up and followed him. When Jesus was at dinner in his house, a number of tax collectors and sinners were also sitting at table with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many of them among his followers. When the scribes of the Pharisee party saw him eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, 'Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?' When Jesus heard this he said to them, 'It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. I came to call not the upright, but sinners.'

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

We continue to read the Gospel according to Mark. Day after day, the Gospel unites us to Jesus and to the small community that he gathered, while he takes his first steps in the preaching of the Gospel. Jesus continues to walk along the shore of the lake of Galilee and he encounters Levi, a tax collector, sitting at the tax booth. Publicans, or tax collectors, were distrusted and despised, but Jesus stops right in front of the sinner. Jesus looks at him and invites him to follow him. And Levi, without hesitation, leaves everything behind and begins to follow him. The small community grows in number and Jesus does not worry about the background or condition of those he calls to follow him. Indeed, to join the community of disciples there are no requirements: it does not matter how we are, our story or character. Levi is even considered a public sinner because of his job as tax collector that enriched the treasury of the Roman oppressor. This does not stop Jesus. In order to be part of the community of disciples what matters is to listen to the Word of God and put it into practice. For Levi, who will be known also as Matthew, as for the first four disciples, it was enough to hear one single word: "Follow me." Levi got up, left his table, and began to follow Jesus. The evangelist goes on to say that Levi organized a lunch in honour of Jesus and the disciples. However, Levi invites his friends, tax collectors and sinners. At this, the Pharisees accuse Jesus publicly for his sinful behaviour and reveal their hardness of heart. They are capable of neither seeing nor understanding the meaning of mercy. Jesus' sensibility is quite different: "I have come to call not the righteous but sinners," he replies to their accusations. Not that Jesus considered the Pharisees righteous. They were the ones who erroneously thought righteously of themselves. But certainly, Levi and the other diners - like each of us - were weak, poor, and sinful. Jesus came specifically for the weak and the sinners, but he also came for the Pharisees. And some of them will end up following, too. But, the condition to be saved is not to consider oneself righteous, but rather to be in need of the Lord's help.

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR

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!

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR