Reading of the Word of God
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Hosea 14, 2-10
Israel, come back to Yahweh your God your guilt was the cause of your downfall.
Provide yourself with words and come back to Yahweh. Say to him, 'Take all guilt away and give us what is good, instead of bulls we will dedicate to you our lips.
Assyria cannot save us, we will not ride horses any more, or say, "Our God!" to our own handiwork, for you are the one in whom orphans find compassion.'
I shall cure them of their disloyalty, I shall love them with all my heart, for my anger has turned away from them.
I shall fall like dew on Israel, he will bloom like the lily and thrust out roots like the cedar of Lebanon;
he will put out new shoots, he will have the beauty of the olive tree and the fragrance of Lebanon.
They will come back to live in my shade; they will grow wheat again, they will make the vine flourish, their wine will be as famous as Lebanon's.
What has Ephraim to do with idols any more when I hear him and watch over him? I am like an evergreen cypress, you owe your fruitfulness to me.
Let the wise understand these words, let the intelligent grasp their meaning, for Yahweh's ways are straight and the upright will walk in them, but sinners will stumble.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
In this time of Lent, the liturgy continues to urge us to return to the Lord. Yes, it is the time of return. This page of the prophet Hosea also emphasizes this and calls on Israel: "Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity" (v. 1). It is a very opportune time to return to ourselves and understand again that God's mercy is great and His Word crucial for our lives. Listening to the Holy Scriptures we understand our sin again and we also learn how to turn to the Lord. The prophet exhorts the people: "Take words with you and return to the Lord" (v. 2). We could say that it shows us how to get back: make space in our mind and heart for the Word that God speaks to us. Sin, in fact, begins its journey when we give up listening to the Word of God to hear other words, other directions. Hosea makes it clear to the Israelites when he puts on their lips the words to say to God: "Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses; we will say no more, Our God’, to the work of our hands" (v. 3). The return to God, which the prophet and our time ask of us, means coming back to stay close to the Lord and to listen. And he repeats to us: "I will heal their disloyalty; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them" (v. 4). The Lord seems to be content merely with our affectionate closeness. We could say that it takes little for God to be moved because of us and fill us with his friendship: "I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily, he shall strike root like the forests of Lebanon. His shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive tree, and his fragrance like that of Lebanon" (v. 5-6). They are images that describe just how great and strong is the love of God for his people. And it is such an abundance of love that makes us understand his jealousy for a people on whom he pours all his love.
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
