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
Matthew 8, 5-11
When he went into Capernaum a centurion came up and pleaded with him.
'Sir,' he said, 'my servant is lying at home paralysed and in great pain.'
Jesus said to him, 'I will come myself and cure him.'
The centurion replied, 'Sir, I am not worthy to have you under my roof; just give the word and my servant will be cured.
For I am under authority myself and have soldiers under me; and I say to one man, "Go," and he goes; to another, "Come here," and he comes; to my servant, "Do this," and he does it.'
When Jesus heard this he was astonished and said to those following him, 'In truth I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found faith as great as this.
And I tell you that many will come from east and west and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob at the feast in the kingdom of Heaven;
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Gospel passage for this first Monday of Advent presents us with a Roman centurion who approaches Jesus to ask for his servant to be healed. We can say that this centurion, who leaves his house to find Jesus and ask for healing, is truly the man of Advent, that is, a person who is not resigned to evil but waits for healing, a person who hopes that someone can help him. Let us imitate him and let us too go towards the Lord in order to be saved. We are similar to him in many things. The centurion is a grown man, and he does not share the faith of Israel. Moreover, he is a military, probably an official from the small army of Herod Antipas. All of these reasons should keep him from turning to a Jewish teacher and asking for help. But his servant is sick. His worry for his servant - it is a beautiful attitude - pushes him to go out to find Jesus. He does not really know how to speak to the young prophet, but he intuitively understands that all he has to do is put a little of his heart in those good hands and his request will be granted. Jesus reads in the centurion’s heart and, with the generosity of someone who knows how to be moved, goes beyond the centurion’s request, saying that he will go to his house to heal his servant. At this point, which one of us would not take advantage of such great generosity? But the centurion only becomes more embarrassed. He knows he is speaking to a prophet who comes from God and immediately understands the extent of his own poverty and smallness. He tells Jesus that he is not worthy to have him come to his house. Yet, unlike us, that centurion feels ashamed in front of such a good man. And he speaks the splendid words that, with great spiritual wisdom, the liturgy places on our lips, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed." We could roughly explain his thinking as follows: "If I who am under imperial authority have power over my soldiers, then you who come from God surely must have greater power." Seeing the sincerity of the man’s heart, Jesus praises his faith. He is a pagan, and yet he has great faith. Faith does not mean belonging, it means trusting in Jesus completely. And the centurion hears the good prophet tell him: "Go. What you believed will happen." We could say that the Lord is swayed by his faith. And, in fact, the servant was healed "in that hour," as the evangelist notes, as a sign of Jesus’ power. Not only was the servant healed, but the centurion too. In encountering Jesus he discovered that he was unworthy, but he also found someone who profoundly understood him. With the feelings of this pagan centurion we can approach the Lord certain that he will come to meet us.
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
