Memorial of Saint Augustine of Canterbury (605 ca.), bishop, father of the English church. Read more
Memorial of Saint Augustine of Canterbury (605 ca.), bishop, father of the English church.
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
Sirach 36, 1-2.5-6.13-19
Take pity on us, Master, Lord of the universe, look at us, spread fear of yourself throughout all other nations.
Raise your hand against the foreign nations and let them see your might.
Send new portents, do fresh wonders, win glory for your hand and your right arm.
Rouse your fury, pour out your rage, destroy the opponent, annihilate the enemy.
Fill Zion with your praises and your sanctuary with your glory.
Vindicate those whom you created first, fulfil what has been prophesied in your name.
Give those who wait for you their reward, let your prophets be proved true.
Grant, Lord, the prayer of your servants, in the terms of Aaron's blessing on your people,
so that all the earth's inhabitants may acknowledge that you are the Lord, the everlasting God.
The stomach takes in all kinds of food, but some foods are better than others.
As the palate discerns the flavour of game, so a shrewd listener detects lying words.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The people of Israel are being oppressed by the Seleucids. This distressing condition is the background of this prayer. The people of Israel must regain their freedom. But it is not possible without God's intervention. All slavery is the result of the people straying from the Lord and his Law and relying only on their own strength. The people of Israel thought they could heal their wounds with the "medicine" of military and political triumphs, believing that their earthly power and military strength were enough to dominate other nations and so find their place in history. The people of Israel often try the path of assimilation with other nations, changing their way of life to more closely match the beliefs and behaviours of other peoples. But this is not the way be faithful to the Lord. The believer's path must flow from justice, not abandoning the good, and remembering the poor and the oppressed. This is the meaning of Sirach's heart-felt prayer, which asks God for the rebirth of his people. Scripture often describes God with language that makes him seem to reveal the power of His arm by striking fear into the neighbouring nations and even destroying them. But the light of Jesus' teaching, which even illuminates the pages of the Old Testament, never justifies the destruction of the other. The only intention is to reject the behaviours of the nations that do not believe in God. The nations do not fear or respect the God of Israel because they think their gods are stronger and they can defeat Israel. So they use force to bend justice and choose violence to crush the poor. But here is this prayer, which asks God to have pity on his people and make them an effective witness of his work. The people of Israel are reborn when they return to God. They will find a Father who takes care of his people in order to involve them in his loving plan for the world and all nations. The nation that the Lord desires is a nation of children sent to gather all the other nations of the earth so that they might rediscover the one God and Father. This is the universal vision that will appear in all of its clarity in the New Testament.
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
