Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.
The child you shall bear will be holy.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Numbers 12, 1-13
Miriam, and Aaron too, criticised Moses over the Cushite woman he had married. He had indeed married a Cushite woman.
They said, 'Is Moses the only one through whom Yahweh has spoken? Has he not spoken through us too?' Yahweh heard this.
Now Moses was extremely humble, the humblest man on earth.
Suddenly Yahweh said to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, 'Come out, all three of you, to the Tent of Meeting.' They went, all three of them,
and Yahweh descended in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the Tent. He called Aaron and Miriam and they both came forward.
Yahweh said: Listen to my words! if there is a prophet among you, I reveal myself to him in a vision, I speak to him in a dream.
Not so with my servant Moses; to him my whole household is entrusted;
to him I speak face to face, plainly and not in riddles, and he sees Yahweh's form. How, then, could you dare to criticise my servant Moses?
Yahweh's anger was aroused by them. He went away,
and as soon as the cloud left the Tent, there was Miriam covered with a virulent skin-disease, white as snow! Aaron turned to look at her and saw that she had contracted a virulent skin-disease.
Aaron said to Moses: 'Oh, my Lord, please do not punish us for the sin we have been foolish enough to commit.
Do not let her be like some monster with its flesh half eaten away when it leaves its mother's womb!'
Moses pleaded with Yahweh. 'O God,' he said, 'I beg you, please heal her!'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Moses is criticized even by Aaron. The reason seems to be the Ethiopian woman, a foreigner he had married. The temptation of the people of Israel was to judge everything based on their own experience, to believe true only what they were able to understand, reducing everything to their own vision and tradition. God is always larger than our heart. The Lord does not accept murmuring, divisions, small or large though they may be. He wants to lead everyone to a life that is beautiful and full, that is free from complaint, quarrels, coldness, which accompany life together and prevent dialogue. Their murmurings weaken the people, as they always do, make divisions grow, and generate suspicion. They separate brothers, exposing everyone to the force of evil. Moses was very meek, meeker than all men on earth. He is a humble man, says the book of Numbers, and this is his strength. He does not answer but he lets God intervene to defend him. He is a brave man, but remains humble because he knows that everything is the fruit of the love of God. When we are not humble our own self, our ego, makes us think that we are strong alone, we respond to evil with evil, so we allow the seeds of division to grow. Moses, the greatest one, who leads the people from slavery to the freedom of the promised land, remains humble. The less we listen to God the more our pride grows. God asks all three to go to the tent of the meeting and scolds Aaron and Miriam because they have not been afraid to speak against his servant. The wrath of God is a strong feeling, as was the anger of Jesus in the temple occupied by the merchants; it is not punishment but a manifestation of his passion. Understanding it helps us to evaluate the consequences of our actions, which cause pain in the heart of God. When he goes away, when we lose him because of our presumptive cleverness, the heart becomes sick, as happens to Miriam, and life is lost. Aaron finally realizes the consequences of sin and asks to be healed. Moses himself intercedes for Miriam and Aaron. He is truly humble. He puts everything in God’s hands and does not judge his brother.
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
