Memory of Saint Scholastica (480 AD - 547ca), sister of Saint Benedict. With her we remember all women hermits and nuns together with all the women who follow the Lord. Read more
Memory of Saint Scholastica (480 AD - 547ca), sister of Saint Benedict. With her we remember all women hermits and nuns together with all the women who follow the Lord.
Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I am the good shepherd,
my sheep listen to my voice,
and they become
one flock and one fold.
.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Mark 7, 24-30
He left that place and set out for the territory of Tyre. There he went into a house and did not want anyone to know he was there; but he could not pass unrecognised.
At once a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him and came and fell at his feet.
Now this woman was a gentile, by birth a Syro-Phoenician, and she begged him to drive the devil out of her daughter.
And he said to her, 'The children should be fed first, because it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to little dogs.'
But she spoke up, 'Ah yes, sir,' she replied, 'but little dogs under the table eat the scraps from the children.'
And he said to her, 'For saying this you may go home happy; the devil has gone out of your daughter.'
So she went off home and found the child lying on the bed and the devil gone.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
After the end of Jesus’ argument with the Pharisees about ritual washing and legal purity, Mark’s text offers us the episode of the Syrophoenician woman. Jesus returns to pagan territory and remains there for some time in order to complete a genuine evangelising mission. By breaking out of the customary boundaries of the people of Israel, Jesus is trying to say that the Gospel is not reserved for certain populations or for certain people. There is no one in the world who is irrelevant to the Gospel; there is no one who cannot be touched by the Lord’s mercy. As the evangelist recounts, the example of the Syrophoenician woman seems to "force" Jesus to expand the scope of his mission. We could say that the Gospel even pushes Jesus to constantly go beyond, not stopping within the usual limits, even those of his culture or those of his very religion. Immediately after being baptised by John, Jesus was "led up by the Spirit" into the desert (Mt 4:1), as if to underline Jesus’ obedience to the Father. In this case, it is the woman’s prayer that bends Jesus’ heart. She keeps insisting that he heal her sick daughter. It is an example for all of us believers: this is how to pray. Jesus himself had repeatedly insisted on the importance of perseverance in prayer: "Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened" (Lk 11:9-10). This poor woman’s insistence helps us understand the mercy and goodness of God. The Lord cannot resist the sincere prayers of his children. That woman persevered in prayer, and Jesus answered her, going well beyond her request. He did not just give her crumbs; he gave her daughter the fullness of life. Truly, the Lord’s heart is great and rich in mercy. All that is asks of us is to turn to him in faith. At the end of the parable about the effectiveness of prayer, Jesus says: "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (Lk 11:13).
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
