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 1, 18-24
This is how Jesus Christ came to be born. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.
Her husband Joseph, being an upright man and wanting to spare her disgrace, decided to divorce her informally.
He had made up his mind to do this when suddenly the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, 'Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit.
She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.'
Now all this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken through the prophet:
Look! the virgin is with child and will give birth to a son whom they will call Immanuel, a name which means 'God-is-with-us'.
When Joseph woke up he did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do: he took his wife to his home;
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
With only a few days remaining before Christmas, we encounter the figure of Joseph. The opening page of Matthew we heard yesterday recounted the genealogy of Jesus, which ends with a reference to Joseph, “the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born.” Today his image stands before our eyes more clearly. The evangelist only speaks about Joseph a few times, and he presents the way in which “the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place” in order to underline its irregular nature. He speaks about Joseph and the drama he experiences because of everything that happens to him. Joseph was engaged to Mary, and, according to Jewish tradition, this essentially meant they were already married. Consequently, when he learns that Mary is pregnant, he feels like a betrayed husband and therefore has the right to divorce her legally. If he did so, Mary would be seen as an adulteress and rejected and ostracized by her family and all the inhabitants of the village. It was truly a dramatic situation. And we can imagine the worry felt by this young man who felt betrayed by a wife who certainly seemed extraordinary, and rightly so. Perhaps because of the high esteem in which he held her, Joseph decided to divorce her in secret. He loved her so much that he interpreted the law in the most delicate, even merciful and loving, way. But if this just man, a man who was even more delicate than the law, had carried out that action, an action that he and the law considered being just, he would have acted against the deeper justice of God. There is, in fact, a “beyond” of God that the angel reveals to Joseph in his sleep. Joseph listens to the angel sent by God, understands Mary’s mystery, and allows his life to become involved in it. Joseph lets himself be pulled away from his own personal projects, as just and honest as they might be, to follow God’s dream for Mary and the world. And, after Mary, Joseph becomes the second believer. The angel continues to speak to him and reveals the role he is going to play in this salvation story: “You are to name him Jesus.” Joseph must recognize and say whose child it is. A few days before Christmas, Joseph becomes the image of the believer and shows each one of us how to live out the mystery that we are getting ready to celebrate: we must listen to the Word of God and prepare ourselves to take Jesus, who is about to be born, with 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
