EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Mother of the Lord
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Mother of the Lord
Tuesday, March 11


Reading of the Word of God

Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory

The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.
The child you shall bear will be holy.

Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory

Matthew 6, 7-15

'In your prayers do not babble as the gentiles do, for they think that by using many words they will make themselves heard.

Do not be like them; your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

So you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be held holy,

your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven those who are in debt to us.

And do not put us to the test, but save us from the Evil One.

'Yes, if you forgive others their failings, your heavenly Father will forgive you yours;

but if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive your failings either.

 

Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory

Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.

Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory

During this time of Lent the liturgy offers pages of the Gospel that are among the most significant. They help us grow in our inner life. Therefore every day we should let our minds to be instructed and our hearts warmed by the word of the Gospel. Today Jesus gives us the gift of his prayer: the Our Father. First of all, he warns us about the fact that prayer is not saying many words as if their number was important; it is our hearts that are relevant. He wants to show us the way instead of direct prayer, the one that immediately comes to the heart of God. No one else but him could teach it. Only he, he is the perfect Son who knows the Father in depth. For this, loving his disciples with a love without limits, he teaches them the highest prayer that God cannot help but listen. And we understand it from the first word: “abbà” (dad). With this simple word – it is the one that all little children say to their father -- Jesus makes a real religious revolution compared to the Jewish tradition which could not even call the holy name of God: Jesus involves us in his intimacy with his Father. He is not “lowering down” his Father, we are rather lifted up to heaven, to the very heart of God who is “in heaven”, so much so that we call Him “dad”. The Father, even though in heaven, is the one who embraces us. Jesus does not say, and he could have, “My Father”, but “Our Father.” We are used to say “My Father;” at times we build God as we want, we ask for ourselves and a little for others, as if each one had his/her God. But the God of Jesus is the father of “us,” of the whole humanity. No one can take Him for him/herself, for his/her own use. Therefore it is right to do the will of a Father like Him; it is right to ask for His kingdom to come soon, the time when the holiness of God will be eventually recognized. In the second part of prayer Jesus makes us ask the father to look at our daily life: we ask for bread, bread for our bodies and bread for our hearts. And then we dare with a demanding request - “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” This request may seem hard and unreal, as admitting that human forgiving is a model (“as we also have forgiven ...”) for the divine one. Indeed it is a request of extraordinary human wisdom. We understand it in the following verses – “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” This language is incomprehensible for a society, as ours, in which forgiveness is rare, if not totally banned, and in any case, rancour is a tree that we cannot eradicate. But perhaps that is why we still need to learn to pray the “Our Father.”

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