Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.
The child you shall bear will be holy.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Luke 7, 11-17
It happened that soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, accompanied by his disciples and a great number of people.
Now when he was near the gate of the town there was a dead man being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a considerable number of the townspeople was with her.
When the Lord saw her he felt sorry for her and said to her, 'Don't cry.'
Then he went up and touched the bier and the bearers stood still, and he said, 'Young man, I tell you: get up.'
And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him to his mother.
Everyone was filled with awe and glorified God saying, 'A great prophet has risen up among us; God has visited his people.'
And this view of him spread throughout Judaea and all over the countryside.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
A young manthe only son of a widowdies. The mother’s life breaks. Every thread of hope seems to be cut off forever. Nothing is possible for the son or the mother--only to bury one and accompany the other, consoling her pain. But what is impossible for men and women is possible for God. This is what the Gospel passage tells us. Seeing the sad funeral procession leaving the gate of the city of Nain to go to the cemetery, Jesus is moved for this widowed mother who feels definitively cut off from her life. The evangelist notes that having seen the broken-hearted mother, Jesus “had compassion for her.” It is the same feeling which drove him to come down from heaven and walk the streets and squares of his time gathering and consoling the tired and worn-out crowds, the sheep without a shepherd. In seeing the scene of Jesus who comes closer to that mother, the crowd stops. Jesus tells her immediately not to cry, and then he goes toward the cot where the dead boy is laying, perhaps covered by a veil. It was prohibited for Jews to touch a dead body. But Jesus infringes this instruction of the Leviticus law. As soon as he reaches the dead boy he says to him: “Young man, I say to you, rise!” Jesus speaks to him as if he were alive. And that young man seems to hear the voice of Jesus and gets up and speaks. Did not the centurion say to Jesus: “Say the word and my servant will be healed”? The Gospel word is always effective if welcomed with the heart. It revives life, gives energy to those who have lost it, creates a new heart for those have turned theirs into stone, and offers brothers and sisters to whoever is alone. So many are the youth today who live as if they were dead, that is, without hope for their futures. Hope in a better world has been stolen from them. For them society is very often unkind. They find themselves alone and disoriented in a world without a future. And they wait for someone to stop next to them and turn to them directly and say: “Young man, I say to you, rise!” The Gospel helps us to hope and work for them. So many of us remember the scene of the enormous gathering of youth in Rio de Janeiro with Pope Francis. It was a truly a wind of resurrection. That image must sink itself daily into various countries. The youth of this century need someone to stop next to them, someone who will stop the slide toward death, who will touch them as Jesus did with that young man and who knows how to address them with true, authoritative and strong words, words that are full of hope. It could seem to our eyes that youth do not listen to these words. But it is not so. If the words flow from a heart full of feeling, like that of Jesus, young people will know how to listen to them. In truth, every Christian community, every disciple, is called to feel the same compassion of Jesus for youth. It is from this strong and bold compassion that the words will flow also for us, words that give back hope to today’s youth.
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
