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
2 Corinthians 3, 4-11
Such is the confidence we have through Christ in facing God;
it is not that we are so competent that we can claim any credit for ourselves; all our competence comes from God.
He has given us the competence to be ministers of a new covenant, a covenant which is not of written letters, but of the Spirit; for the written letters kill, but the Spirit gives life.
Now if the administering of death, engraved in letters on stone, occurred in such glory that the Israelites could not look Moses steadily in the face, because of its glory, transitory though this glory was,
how much more will the ministry of the Spirit occur in glory!
For if it is glorious to administer condemnation, to administer saving justice is far richer in glory.
Indeed, what was once considered glorious has lost all claim to glory, by contrast with the glory which transcends it.
For if what was transitory had any glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts for ever.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Never as in this letter is Paul constrained to speak about himself. Not to promote himself, but to hold the community of Corinth tied to the Gospel. He adds that, “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all” (v. 2). We may say that the life of the community itself is the clearer and stronger announcement of the Gospel. Rooted here is as Gregory the Great has said, “Scripture grows with those who read it.” The “real” Scripture, “the letter of Christ” is the living community. In it appears the power of the Word engraved by the Spirit in the hearts of listeners through the preaching of the apostle. The link between the preaching and the heart of the listener is given not by the ability of the preacher of the gospel but from the Spirit who is present in the heart. Paul has already written in his First Letter to the community: “And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, [so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God]” (1Cor 2:3-5). In the words of the apostle emerges the passionate love with which he has communicated the Word of God so that it may arrive in the hearts [of the hearers]. For this he has toiled and has spent years of his life. He claims paternity of the community in order that it may not be distracted from its foundation in the Gospel. The passage ends with a rereading of the revelation made by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. Paul compares the revelation of the law, which was written on tablets of stone, with the revelation of the Gospel. But this latter revelation, which comes from the Spirit, is much more profound than the first, because it is not carved on tablets of stone, but into hearts. He adds, “For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (v. 6). And the spirit of Jesus takes away each veil of ritual religiosity to show that the eternal essence of the Gospel is 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
