Memory of St. Sergii Radonezhsky of the Russian church. He founded the Lavra (monastery) of the Most Holy Trinity near Moscow. Memory of the evangelical pastor Paul Schneider who died in the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald on July 18, 1939. Read more
Memory of St. Sergii Radonezhsky of the Russian church. He founded the Lavra (monastery) of the Most Holy Trinity near Moscow. Memory of the evangelical pastor Paul Schneider who died in the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald on July 18, 1939.
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
Jeremiah 7, 1-15
The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,
'Stand at the gate of the Temple of Yahweh and there proclaim this message. Say, "Listen to the word of Yahweh, all you of Judah who come in by these gates to worship Yahweh.
Yahweh Sabaoth, the God of Israel, says this: Amend your behaviour and your actions and I will let you stay in this place.
Do not put your faith in delusive words, such as: This is Yahweh's sanctuary, Yahweh's sanctuary, Yahweh's sanctuary!
But if you really amend your behaviour and your actions, if you really treat one another fairly,
if you do not exploit the stranger, the orphan and the widow, if you do not shed innocent blood in this place and if you do not follow other gods, to your own ruin,
then I shall let you stay in this place, in the country I gave for ever to your ancestors of old.
Look, you are putting your faith in delusive, worthless words!
Steal, would you, murder, commit adultery, perjure yourselves, burn incense to Baal, follow other gods of whom you know nothing?-
and then come and stand before me in this Temple that bears my name, saying: Now we are safe to go on doing all these loathsome things!
Do you look on this Temple that bears my name as a den of bandits? I, at any rate, can see straight, Yahweh declares.
"Now go to the place which used to be mine at Shiloh, where I once gave my name a home; see what I have done to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel!
And now, since you have done all these things, Yahweh declares, and refused to listen when I spoke so urgently, so persistently, or to answer when I called you,
I shall treat this Temple that bears my name, and in which you put your heart, the place that I gave you and your ancestors, just as I treated Shiloh,
and I shall drive you out of my sight, as I did all your kinsfolk, the whole race of Ephraim."
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The temple of Jerusalem, built by King Solomon, had become the heart of the people’s relationship with God. It was the place of prayer and especially of sacrifice. In that holy space, the believer entered into communion with the Lord, thanked him for the blessings he or she had received, and received forgiveness from his or her sins. Jeremiah recalls an ancient truth of the faith of Israel that is constantly present in the prophets: the temple is not a place to carry out external rituals that do not correspond to the believer’s life. Starting with Isaiah (chapter 1), and then Hosea (6:1-6), and Amos (4:4-5), the prophets affirm that God is not pleased by sacrifices and prayers offered by people whose hands are stained with blood. Violence and injustice do not go together with spending time in the house of God. As Jesus will say, “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Mt 7:21). Communion with God, which is established in the temple, demands that we measure our lives by listening to his word and not our own. We run the risk of settling for a disincarnated faith that does not become life or love for our neighbours, a faith that does not fight for justice or change hearts and history. Devotions and prayers measured against themselves are not enough. The temple is a place of community, a place for the people of God. There we are not alone. The Christian faith, which has its roots in the faith of Israel, is not some private affair between God and an individual, in which other people have no role. This is why faith is sometimes abstract and does not touch our lives: it is a private affair that each one of us manages him or herself, without the comfort or correction of others. Speaking with the Lord’s voice, Jeremiah adds, “Amend your ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place.” This command comes true in the context of a life that is nourished by the Word of God, concerned with the poor (“do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow”), measured against the faith of others, and not devoted to idolatry. No one can be a disciple without putting the Lord’s commandments into practice and seeking with others to find the path of justice and love.
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
