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
John 3, 16-21
For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
For God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but so that through him the world might be saved.
No one who believes in him will be judged; but whoever does not believe is judged already, because that person does not believe in the Name of God's only Son.
And the judgement is this: though the light has come into the world people have preferred darkness to the light because their deeds were evil.
And indeed, everybody who does wrong hates the light and avoids it, to prevent his actions from being shown up;
but whoever does the truth comes out into the light, so that what he is doing may plainly appear as done in God.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” These words spoken by Jesus to Nicodemus seem like a synthesis of the Gospel according to John. Jesus is God’s gift to humanity, a gift that flows from a limitless love. God’s desire is that great that we do not get lost in the clutches of evil that he sends his only son to free and save us. We can therefore say that when “the Word became flesh,” never has God been so close to us. What greater proof of love than this can we give? God considered his friendship with us greaterif one can say thisthan the bond with His own son. In truth, both the sending of the Son into the world by the Father and the Son’s love for us that led him to death on a cross, show us that love is a gift, is a service and a willingness to give everything we have for others. A false love is what leads us to think only of ourselves. True love is the love of Jesus who spent his entire life to save others from the slavery of evil and death. In this sense, Jesus explains to Nicodemus the reason for his incarnation: “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Jesus does not want the condemnation of the world. He came for exactly the opposite reason: he came to save humanity from evil and from every form of slavery. And the path put in place for this to happen is the path of love: God’s love for us and, consequently, and our affirmative response to receive this love. This is faith. Hence Jesus says, “Those who believe in him [in the Son] are not condemned.” Whoever welcomes Jesus as the one sent by the Father to save us from evil is one who believes; and is, therefore, already saved. Faithand therefore salvationconsists in welcoming Jesus’ immeasurable and gratuitous love. Those who refuse this love are judged, not by Jesus but by themselves, by their own refusal of the power of love that liberates us from the coils of evil, by their own refusal of the light of God’s love and opting to remain in the darkness of self-love. Unfortunately, often, too often, peopleand sometimes the disciples themselvesprefer the darkness of a violent and cruel life to a life of love, justice and fellowship. Acts of egocentrism and violence thicken the darkness that lies in the hearts and lives of people. There exists a diabolical trap that imprisons us. Whoever receives the true lightthe light of Jesus and the Gospelbecomes illuminated by or, even better, wrapped in the light of the Gospel. And, doing good works in God means living with the boundless love of God. This is the love that we and the world need now at the beginning of this new millennium. Pope Francis, visiting the island of Lampedusa last year, sadly infamous for its inhospitality toward immigrants, spoke against the globalization of indifference that is at the root of thousands of deaths, not only at Lampedusa, but throughout the whole world. Christians have the fascinating and arduous task of globalizing the love received from the Lord. He welcomes us into his dynamism, making us “children of the resurrection” and witnesses of the liberating power of His love starting now.
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
