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
Mark 6, 7-13
Then he summoned the Twelve and began to send them out in pairs, giving them authority over unclean spirits.
And he instructed them to take nothing for the journey except a staff -- no bread, no haversack, no coppers for their purses.
They were to wear sandals but, he added, 'Don't take a spare tunic.'
And he said to them, 'If you enter a house anywhere, stay there until you leave the district.
And if any place does not welcome you and people refuse to listen to you, as you walk away shake off the dust under your feet as evidence to them.'
So they set off to proclaim repentance;
and they cast out many devils, and anointed many sick people with oil and cured them.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Gospel describes the first mission of the Twelve before Jesus’ Resurrection. Jesus calls them and sends them two by two to the nearby villages. We could say that the evangelist reports Jesus’ first lesson on the mission. Jesus encourages his disciples (a teaching which retains its full value even today) not to live for themselves and not to remain closed in their narrow horizons, but to reach out to the world, wherever they are, to proclaim the Gospel and to heal the infirmities of humanity. It is a mission that has no borders and that asks the disciples to go ever further beyond the boundaries of the hearts and of the world. It is important that the evangelists Mark, Matthew and Luke, put the mission of the Twelve among the first steps of the public life of Jesus. One may ask if it would not have been better to wait. Often we think that before talking to others about Jesus, before going to communicate the joy of the Christian life, we must grow ourselves, we must understand everything, we must be ready. If Jesus had waited for his disciples to be ready, would he have ever sent them at all, since they all abandoned him at the very end of his earthly life? Christian life is always mission. Every community is always a missionary one. If it is not it the price it will drying up and even extinguish. Today, in this favourable time, we are all called to rediscover the power of the word of Jesus and his force of changing and healing, whether we live in countries of ancient or more recent evangelization. We should not be afraid nor say: I am not capable, it is not up to me, I am not prepared, or anything like that. The strength of the Christians is only in the Lord, the only baggage we have to carry is the Gospel, the only tunic dress is mercy, the only staff on which to lean is charity. And then Jesus never sends us alone. St. Gregory the Great notes that Jesus sent them out two by two because mutual love is the first form preaching. Jesus exhorts his disciples to remain where people welcome them. Severe, on the contrary, will be the responsibility of those who reject the Lord’s love that is offered to them. Conversion, deliverance from evil, and healing are what the disciples are called to communicate and operate wherever they live. The Lord, as he would repeat before ascending into heaven, will give them the power to be able to announce to all the Gospel of the Kingdom, which he inaugurated.
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
