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
Luke 5, 33-39
They then said to him, 'John's disciples are always fasting and saying prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees, too, but yours go on eating and drinking.'
Jesus replied, 'Surely you cannot make the bridegroom's attendants fast while the bridegroom is still with them?
But the time will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them; then, in those days, they will fast.'
He also told them a parable, 'No one tears a piece from a new cloak to put it on an old cloak; otherwise, not only will the new one be torn, but the piece taken from the new will not match the old.
'And nobody puts new wine in old wineskins; otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins and run to waste, and the skins will be ruined.
No; new wine must be put in fresh skins.
And nobody who has been drinking old wine wants new. "The old is good," he says.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
We have all had the experience of seeking rules and regulations, even strict ones, to follow, that may relieve us from the responsibility of understanding what the Lord asks us. This is why the Pharisees praise the Baptist’s disciples, who fast and recite prayers, while they condemn Jesus’ disciples who accept invitations to meals without concern for what others are doing. Jesus responds that the disciples celebrate because they have found the saviour of their lives. The Gospel compares this celebration to a wedding celebration because of its beauty. However, the time will come when the bridegroom "will be taken away from them" -it is the first time that the evangelist refers to Jesus’ deathand then his disciples will be unable to celebrate. They will fast and live many difficult and painful moments. Jesus illustrates his statements with two images. First, he explains: "No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old." In short, the new one is torn and the old one is not repaired. For his second illustration he says: "And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed." In this case, as in the first, the damage is two-fold, it affects both the wine and the wineskins. The two images illustrate very effectively the novelty of the Gospel message: Jesus’ love cannot be contained in the Pharisees’ ritualistic frameworks or in an external attitude that even the disciples may experience. The Gospel of love has a force that bursts forth that cannot be contained by our egocentrism, our laziness, our merely external models, or our formulas with which we oppose even the Spirit. The Gospel of love always asks for a new heart, a heart which undergoes conversion, a mind which listens and lets itself be guided by God. Holding tightly to our own ideas and traditions makes us blind. It makes us love ourselves more than the novelty of the Gospel, to the point that we say, precisely, that "the old is better," that is, we always prefer our own ego and our own habits to the newness of the Gospel.
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
