Memory of Mary, a mentally ill woman who died in Rome. With her we remember all who are mentally ill. Read more
Memory of Mary, a mentally ill woman who died in Rome. With her we remember all who are mentally ill.
Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.
The child you shall bear will be holy.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Matthew 13, 36-43
Then, leaving the crowds, he went to the house; and his disciples came to him and said, 'Explain to us the parable about the darnel in the field.'
He said in reply, 'The sower of the good seed is the Son of man.
The field is the world; the good seed is the subjects of the kingdom; the darnel, the subjects of the Evil One;
the enemy who sowed it, the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; the reapers are the angels.
Well then, just as the darnel is gathered up and burnt in the fire, so it will be at the end of time.
The Son of man will send his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of falling and all who do evil,
and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.
Then the upright will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Anyone who has ears should listen!
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Once back home, the disciples ask Jesus to explain the parable of the weeds of the field. This moment of intimacy between Jesus and the disciples allows them to ask questions and confide in him with more ease. We can liken these moments to those that every community experiences when it gathers together in common prayer. Jesus is present wherever two or three gather in his name. Listening to the Word of God as a community has a particular value and grace, given precisely in Jesus’ assurance that he dwells with us. Therefore, the person who leads the prayer, those who listen to and join it, all have a particular responsibility. In our coming together, this Gospel scene comes alive. Jesus gathers the disciples and explains the parable almost word by word, image by image, so that nothing in the Gospel remains obscure. John stresses the sense of friendship in this moment, as he records Jesus saying to the disciples: "I do not call you servants any longer... because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father" (Jn 15:15). Friendship with Jesus allows us to enter into a deeper understanding of the Gospel’s meaning. This enriching occurs in the moment recounted in this Gospel passage. Jesus explains to the disciples that both the good seed and the weeds of which he spoke in the parable grow together. There are no separate fields, as in a Manichean duality, with the good on one side and on the other the bad. The weeds, evil, grow in the world and in the heart of believers, in the very community of disciples. Good and evil dwell in every people, culture, community and heart. Jesus then speaks of the Day of Judgementthe time to reap. While during the course of history patience is required; at the end, there will come judgement and separation. But in the Lord’s heart there lives always the hope that the weeds will transform themselves into grain, a transformation for which we all have responsibility. Believers need to work to change that part in themselves that is a weed, as well as to transform it in the hearts of others.
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
