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
Hebrews 2, 5-18
It was not under angels that he put the world to come, about which we are speaking.
Someone witnesses to this somewhere with the words: What are human beings that you spare a thought for them, a child of Adam that you care for him?
For a short while you have made him less than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honour,
put all things under his feet. For in putting all things under him he made no exceptions. At present, it is true, we are not able to see that all things are under him,
but we do see Jesus, who was for a short while made less than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour because he submitted to death; so that by God's grace his experience of death should benefit all humanity.
It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should, in bringing many sons to glory, make perfect through suffering the leader of their salvation.
For consecrator and consecrated are all of the same stock; that is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers
in the text: I shall proclaim your name to my brothers, praise you in full assembly; or in the text:
I shall put my hope in him; followed by Look, I and the children whom God has given me.
Since all the children share the same human nature, he too shared equally in it, so that by his death he could set aside him who held the power of death, namely the devil,
and set free all those who had been held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death.
For it was not the angels that he took to himself; he took to himself the line of Abraham.
It was essential that he should in this way be made completely like his brothers so that he could become a compassionate and trustworthy high priest for their relationship to God, able to expiate the sins of the people.
For the suffering he himself passed through while being put to the test enables him to help others when they are being put to the test.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
“What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them?” The quotation from Psalm 8 is made by the author of the Letter to remind the believers of the extraordinary love of God who, in order to save men and women from the power of evil and of death, does not remain looking down from on high in the heavens, but sends his own Son so that he may care for and save them. For the Lord, all men and women are not a small thing; they are the object of his love. And it is this love without limits that impelled the Lord to send the Son to the earth in order to bring “many children to glory” (v. 10). And the Son has descended even into the greatest depths of humanity, even into the abyss into which men and women have allowed themselves to fall, to gather together all and to rescue them. Jesus has thus become the “pioneer of salvation” (v. 10) of all humans; he has become our “brother.” Although being the Son of the Most High, he was not ashamed of us, of our sin, or of our poverty. In fact, he said to the Father, “I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you” (v. 12). For those Christians who lived under the nightmare of persecution and suffering, this announcement was a great consolation because, that which on this earth was oppressing and tormenting them, truly cemented their hearts in the certainty of future salvation. The bond of filiation directly with God and that of firm fraternity with the brothers and sisters have made Jesus the “high priest” for Christians and for the whole of humanity. It is the first time that the title of “high priest” is used for Jesus in the New Testament. This title was not conferred on him to distance him from men and women; on the contrary, He has “become” high priest through his radical brotherhood with us. In this communion that binds the Father, the Son, and the community of brothers and sisters is glimpsed the mystery of the Church intended precisely as a community who prays and who is admitted into the presence of the throne of God by his high priest, Jesus Christ.
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
