Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a people acquired by God
to proclaim his marvellous works.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Mark 7, 14-23
He called the people to him again and said, 'Listen to me, all of you, and understand.
Nothing that goes into someone from outside can make that person unclean; it is the things that come out of someone that make that person unclean.
Anyone who has ears for listening should listen!'
When he had gone into the house, away from the crowd, his disciples questioned him about the parable.
He said to them, 'Even you -- don't you understand? Can't you see that nothing that goes into someone from outside can make that person unclean,
because it goes not into the heart but into the stomach and passes into the sewer?' (Thus he pronounced all foods clean.)
And he went on, 'It is what comes out of someone that makes that person unclean.
For it is from within, from the heart, that evil intentions emerge: fornication, theft, murder,
adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, pride, folly.
All these evil things come from within and make a person unclean.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Gospel continues the discussion about what is clean and what is unclean which already began in yesterday’s Gospel. It is a decisive issue for the teaching of Jesus who calls the crowd around himself to show them the true religious dimension of life. He also wants to respond directly to the question that the Pharisees had asked on why the disciples were eating with “defiled hands.” My disciples - Jesus answers - do so because “there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” The key is the heart. In the Bible the heart is not only the place of feelings, but also that of decisions and choices. From the heart come evil thoughts, impure intentions, and evil decisions. It is the heart, therefore, that we must care for; from the heart we need to eradicate the bitter herbs of hatred, revenge, greed and oppression. Jesus clearly says, “For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” These are the evil feelings and actions that trigger violence and conflict. The central battle of life is fought in the heart to free it from evil instincts and sow the seed of love. We must not trust the heart, because, as the prophet Jeremiah says, “The heart is devious above all else; it is perversewho can understand it? I the Lord test the mind and search the heart” (17:9-10). This is why we need to cultivate in our hearts the Word of God by making it bear fruits. Mary, the first among the believers, teaches us this from the beginning. The Gospel says, “She kept all these things in her heart,” everything she saw that was happening to Jesus. This is why her thoughts and her works were good, because they came from a heart purified by continued, and the uninterrupted listening of, the Word of God and by the uninterrupted contemplation of what Jesus did. It is the way that we ought to follow, if we want to live in purity of heart.
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
