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 17, 1.9-10.15-22
When Abram was ninety-nine years old Yahweh appeared to him and said, 'I am El Shaddai. Live in my presence, be perfect,
God further said to Abraham, 'You for your part must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you, generation after generation.
This is my covenant which you must keep between myself and you, and your descendants after you: every one of your males must be circumcised.
Furthermore God said to Abraham, 'As regards your wife Sarai, you must not call her Sarai, but Sarah.
I shall bless her and moreover give you a son by her. I shall bless her and she will become nations: kings of peoples will issue from her.'
Abraham bowed to the ground, and he laughed, thinking to himself, 'Is a child to be born to a man one hundred years old, and will Sarah have a child at the age of ninety?'
Abraham said to God, 'May Ishmael live in your presence! That will be enough!'
But God replied, 'Yes, your wife Sarah will bear you a son whom you must name Isaac. And I shall maintain my covenant with him, a covenant in perpetuity, to be his God and the God of his descendants after him.
For Ishmael too I grant you your request. I hereby bless him and will make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous. He will be the father of twelve princes, and I shall make him into a great nation.
But my covenant I shall maintain with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear you at this time next year.'
When he had finished speaking to Abraham, God went up from him.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
There is no time in the life of a believer in which he or she can say, “I have done what is necessary; I have done enough.”?God appears to Abraham, saying, “Walk before me, and be blameless.” Being believers like Abraham means walking in God’s presence, listening to God and loving Him with our whole heart, our whole soul, and our whole mind. That is the very essence of the spiritual life. Believers are not called to withdraw from the world, but rather to enter it more boldly, strong only in the love of God. This covenant changes the heart and life of the believer, just as God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, that is, “ancestor of a multitude.” Abraham’s destiny was no longer to be alone, but to be a part of a great, new people that had the task of announcing the love of the Lord to the world. ?Abraham bowed down before the Lord. With him let us bow down too, humiliating our pride, so that God will speak to us and guide us on the paths of the world.
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
