Remembrance of St. Therese of Lisieux, a Carmelite nun with a deep sense of mission of the Church.
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Remembrance of St. Therese of Lisieux, a Carmelite nun with a deep sense of mission of the Church.
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
Revelation 1,9-11
I, John, your brother and partner in hardships, in the kingdom and in perseverance in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos on account of the Word of God and of witness to Jesus;
it was the Lord's Day and I was in ecstasy, and I heard a loud voice behind me, like the sound of a trumpet, saying,
'Write down in a book all that you see, and send it to the seven churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
John is on Patmos, a small island in the Aegean Sea. He presents himself as an ordinary Christian, one of the many disciples who find themselves in prison because of the Word of God. Tradition says that he was exiled to the island during the persecution under Domitian as a way of keeping him away from his communities. The "revelation" took place on the "Lord’s day" (this is the only time this term is used to describe Sunday in the New Testament). The reference is rich in meaning. It was on that day that he was "in the spirit." Is this not what happens every Sunday to each of Jesus’ disciples when they gather together with the community to celebrate the Holy Eucharistic Liturgy? Each time we gather in the Sunday Eucharist, we are freed from the weight of our sad and squalid habits and transported into the world of God and his love. The Holy Eucharist is the experience of meeting the risen Jesus, as happened for the two disciples of Emmaus, not a ritual for us to participate in more or less tiredly. Those who let themselves be involved and even enveloped by the holy liturgy experience its profound energy, which reaches the heart. During the celebration, like John, we too can leave behind the daily bustle and hear a "loud voice:" the Word of God that is spoken to us from on high, from the pulpit. And in order to be heard, the Word certainly demands that we "turn to see," that is, that we turn our gaze away from our habits, our fixations, our convictions, our security, our pride, and our selfish attitudes. If we turn towards the Word, we will hear true and holy words about our lives and about the life of all communities. In fact, we could add the names of the many Christian communities spread throughout the world to those named by John. There are seven names, but only one Church, as an ancient Father said: "Consider the seven Churches as the one Church" (Victorinus of Petau).
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
