EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Poor
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Poor
Monday, February 9


Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Genesis 1, 1-19

In the beginning God created heaven and earth.

Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep, with a divine wind sweeping over the waters.

God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light.

God saw that light was good, and God divided light from darkness.

God called light 'day', and darkness he called 'night'. Evening came and morning came: the first day.

God said, 'Let there be a vault through the middle of the waters to divide the waters in two.' And so it was.

God made the vault, and it divided the waters under the vault from the waters above the vault.

God called the vault 'heaven'. Evening came and morning came: the second day.

God said, 'Let the waters under heaven come together into a single mass, and let dry land appear.' And so it was.

God called the dry land 'earth' and the mass of waters 'seas', and God saw that it was good.

God said, 'Let the earth produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants, and fruit trees on earth, bearing fruit with their seed inside, each corresponding to its own species.' And so it was.

The earth produced vegetation: the various kinds of seed-bearing plants and the fruit trees with seed inside, each corresponding to its own species. God saw that it was good.

Evening came and morning came: the third day.

God said, 'Let there be lights in the vault of heaven to divide day from night, and let them indicate festivals, days and years.

Let them be lights in the vault of heaven to shine on the earth.' And so it was.

God made the two great lights: the greater light to govern the day, the smaller light to govern the night, and the stars.

God set them in the vault of heaven to shine on the earth,

to govern the day and the night and to divide light from darkness. God saw that it was good.

Evening came and morning came: the fourth day.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

We start reading the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, in which the first eleven chapters report Israel’s thinking about creation and humanity. Genesis was not the first book to be written; it came about after the period of exile in Babylon. After the terrible experience of exile it was a moment of deep reflection for the people of Israel as they tried to understand their past and find an explanation for their existence as a people. While they pondered, they found answers to issues around the meaning of creation, of life, of the existence of evil in human life, death and still more questions. Why do we live? Where did we come from? Where are we going? Answers to these questions start in the very first words of Genesis “In the beginning”. The deeper meaning of things has more to do with content than with temporal accuracy. Why do we exist? Because God wanted it. And God stands at “the beginning” of creation, at the origin of the world, in the depths of every human being. At its base, science speaks of the origins of the universe, yet it cannot respond to the questions of meaning or of why we exist. God wanted us; and he is the Lord, the only Lord of our lives and of the lives of each and every human being. No one else can present himself or herself as being “at the beginning,” at the founding of human life or of creation itself. The biblical author starts the narration by showing the strength of the Word: God speaks and his word creates; it brings about the origins of existence. This “Word,” with which the fourth Gospels starts became flesh and came to live among us so that whoever hears the Word may be saved. This particular passage talks about the fourth day when the sun, moon and stars were created in order to bring “light” in the heavenly firmament; so that they may “be for signs and for seasons and for days and years”. The passage marks the mid-point in the seven days of creation. Indeed, even though light was created on the first day, only on the fourth was its existence given a purpose for creation. Even if at first, light and darkness serve to distinguish day from night, the author underlines the fact that they were created to regulate time for men and women so that they adapt to God’s rhythm, that is liturgical feast days. Indeed, without feasts – as we will see more clearly in the Sabbath, the “seventh day” - creation does not reach its full completion. Human beings may be masters of everything, but time is not completely theirs. God’s time must enter into all time. Without God's time, creation would be missing something essential. In a society like ours that is losing the sense of a feast day, the creation story reminds us not to put our work and activity at the centre of everything. Welcoming time for God in our day is critical for us and for our society in order to avoid violence and any kind of oppression. God’s time saves humanity’s time. In the historical dialogue between God and human beings humanity finds its salvation.

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