EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Church
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Church
Thursday, December 19


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

Luke 7, 24-30

When John's messengers had gone he began to talk to the people about John,

'What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swaying in the breeze? No! Then what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? Look, those who go in magnificent clothes and live luxuriously are to be found at royal courts!

Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and much more than a prophet:

he is the one of whom scripture says: Look, I am going to send my messenger in front of you to prepare your way before you.

'I tell you, of all the children born to women, there is no one greater than John; yet the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.'

All the people who heard him, and the tax collectors too, acknowledged God's saving justice by accepting baptism from John;

but by refusing baptism from him the Pharisees and the lawyers thwarted God's plan for them.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Yesterday we heard in Luke’s Gospel Jesus’ response to John’s disciples who had asked if he was the Messiah or if they should wait for another. After his reply, these disciples returned to tell John, who was in prison, what Jesus had said. As they go away, Jesus turns to the crowd to sing the praise of this special prophet who was his same age. He recalls John’s extraordinary preaching. Jesus himself was fascinated by him so that he went to the Jordan River to John right at the beginning of his public life. On the shore of the Jordan, a place where tradition said that the palingenesis of the world would occur, John admonished everyone to distance himself or herself from a superficial lifestyle; to refrain from a life lived at the mercy of what is in fashion and from false and deceitful myths. The austere prophet exhorted people to enter into themselves, to do penance, to chose for justice, and to seek the Lord. His preaching was not far from that of the ancient prophets of Israel. This was already a great thing. But John –says Jesus - was more than a prophet: he was sent by God to prepare the way for the Messiah. This is his true greatness: to prepare the hearts of men and women of that time to receive the Messiah, the Saviour. In this sense, in spiritual vision of history, every disciple of Jesus and every Christian community should have the same mission of the Baptist: that is to prepare the hearts to welcome the Saviour. The disciple of Jesus, in fact, does not live in order to talk about himself or his deeds and undertakings, nor to affirm his own ideas or his own convictions. A disciple’s entire life, words and deeds are to prepare the way to the Lord, so that Jesus may enter the hearts of people, God’s mercy may reach the hearts of all those to which he was sent. The Christian, the Church, functions so that the Word of God touches the hearts of men and women and moves them in such a way so that they are disposed to meet Jesus and follow him. It is the mission to which every Christian generation is called until the ends of the earth. Yes, every disciple and every Christian community in any time are asked to continue to point out Jesus to the men and women of their time and to say, “Behold the lamb of God.” And it needs to be done with words and with the witness of a life, just as John did.

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR

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!

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR