Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I am the good shepherd,
my sheep listen to my voice,
and they become
one flock and one fold.
.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Jeremiah 2,1-3.7-8.12-13
The word of Yahweh came to me, saying, 'Go and shout this in Jerusalem's ears: 'Yahweh says this: "I remember your faithful love, the affection of your bridal days, when you followed me through the desert, through a land unsown. Israel was sacred to Yahweh; the first-fruits of his harvest; all who ate this incurred guilt, disaster befell them, Yahweh declares." ' I brought you to a country of plenty, to enjoy its produce and good things; but when you entered you defiled my country and made my heritage loathsome. The priests never asked, "Where is Yahweh?" Those skilled in the Law did not know me, the shepherds too rebelled against me and the prophets prophesied by Baal and followed the Useless Ones. You heavens, stand aghast at this, horrified, utterly appalled, Yahweh declares. For my people have committed two crimes: they have abandoned me, the fountain of living water, and dug water-tanks for themselves, cracked water-tanks that hold no water.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
This passage is like a cry from God to his people to wake them up from their sleep and remind them of the story of his love for them. Gregory the Great said that Holy Scripture is God’s love letter to us. And indeed, every time we listen to it, we can recognize and savour the great favour with which the Lord has looked upon our lives and the loving care he has for us. God has drawn us in and we have followed Him. The Lord feels the need to "shout" his love for his people through the prophet to keep them from forgetting the great story of goodness which they experienced with the Lord. Unfortunately, it is easy for the people of Israel, as it is for us, to pay more attention to what they feel other people owe them than to their own debts, which are many. Sometimes we even dare to boast of our merits before God, like the Pharisee in the Gospel parable, forgetting the gifts and the grace we have received. How often do we repeat the errors of Israel! During the journey through the desert they let God lead them and experienced His mercy, but once they entered the Promised Land, they grew comfortable in their certainty and began passionately seeking their own wealth and well being. This attitude led them to forget God and His mercy. Pride and a sense of self-sufficiency make us forget God’s works and inevitably lead us away from Him. But God demands that His people give Him an answer: "What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?" Yes, what wrong can we find in God to justify leaving him and following ourselves? We must ask ourselves this question. Otherwise we will end up empty-handed, having preferred to follow ourselves rather than listen to the Lord. Perhaps the disappointment we feel in so many moments has been caused by a life in which the Lord counts for little, because we are so obsessed with ourselves.
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
