EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Mother of the Lord
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Mother of the Lord
Tuesday, October 6


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

Jonah 3, 1-10

The word of Yahweh was addressed to Jonah a second time.

'Up!' he said, 'Go to Nineveh, the great city, and preach to it as I shall tell you.'

Jonah set out and went to Nineveh in obedience to the word of Yahweh. Now Nineveh was a city great beyond compare; to cross it took three days.

Jonah began by going a day's journey into the city and then proclaimed, 'Only forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown.'

And the people of Nineveh believed in God; they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least.

When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his robe, put on sackcloth and sat down in ashes.

He then had it proclaimed throughout Nineveh, by decree of the king and his nobles, as follows: 'No person or animal, herd or flock, may eat anything; they may not graze, they may not drink any water.

All must put on sackcloth and call on God with all their might; and let everyone renounce his evil ways and violent behaviour.

Who knows? Perhaps God will change his mind and relent and renounce his burning wrath, so that we shall not perish.'

God saw their efforts to renounce their evil ways. And God relented about the disaster which he had threatened to bring on them, and did not bring it.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Jonah’s flight to the west was not successful. The Lord sends him back to preach in Nineveh, in the east. Obedience to the Word of God allows Jonah to perform the miracle that seemed totally impossible. Accompanied by the power of God, the prophet begins to travel through that great city. It took five words to awaken faith in the Lord in Nineveh. Even before Jonah had stopped preaching, before three days had passed, the inhabitants of Nineveh "believed" the words of the prophet and converted to the Lord. The text emphasizes the fact that this conversion involves all of the inhabitants, from the greatest to the least, even the animals. Fasting and prayer are the signs of conversion. God’s heart is touched by the inhabitants’ conversion, and he decides to change his judgment of condemnation to a judgment of mercy. The Lord has mercy on those people who had recognized their wicked conduct and he did not carry out the evil he had threatened. Even the worst enemy, the most violent people, the most wicked man or woman, can change his or her life if he or she listens to the Word of God. The prophet helps people recognize the evil in their lives and change their hearts. This is a responsibility that God, as he did with Jonah, entrusts to those who communicate his Word. We are all prophets in the Lord Jesus, and we have all been given the task of communicating the Word of God to the wider 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!