Memorial of Saint Stephen (+1038), king of Hungary. He was converted to the Gospel and promoted the evangelization of his country. Read more
Memorial of Saint Stephen (+1038), king of Hungary. He was converted to the Gospel and promoted the evangelization of his country.
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
Ezekiel 28,1-10
The word of Yahweh was addressed to me as follows, 'Son of man, say to the ruler of Tyre, "The Lord Yahweh says this: Because your heart has grown proud, you thought: I am a god; I am divinely enthroned far out to sea. Though you are human, not divine, you have allowed yourself to think like God. So, you are wiser than Danel; no sage as wise as you! By your wisdom and your intelligence you have made yourself a fortune, you have put gold and silver into your treasuries. Such is your skill in trading, your fortune has continued to increase, and your fortune has made your heart grow prouder. "And so, the Lord Yahweh says this: Since you have allowed yourself to think like God, very well, I am going to bring foreigners against you, the most barbarous of the nations. They will draw sword against your fine wisdom, they will desecrate your splendour, they will throw you down into the grave and you will die a violent death far out to sea. Will you still think: I am a god, when your slaughterers confront you? But you will be human, not divine, in the clutches of the ones who strike you down! You will die like the uncircumcised at the hand of foreigners. "For I have spoken -- declares the Lord Yahweh." '
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The passage we have read is part of the words spoken by the prophet to the people. Here it is about Tyre, an important commercial city in present-day Lebanon. The Word of God also speaks outside of our normal boundaries; it is a word that everyone can listen to. Ezekiel recognizes something that is constant in the attitudes of all the nations: pride, the arrogance that leads them to exalt themselves and their own strength. For the prophet, pride is the original sin of nations, the thing that undermines their ability to live together. We read: "Because your heart is proud and you have said, I am a god...yet you are but a mortal, and no god." What is the basis of this sin? The city’s heart is full of pride because of its lust for power and the wealth it has accumulated through trade. The Word of God breaks into history with its strength to tell us once again that the sin of pride, which leads people to believe in themselves, in their own power and strength, and only aims for the enrichment of a few in a marketplace with no scruples, still causes many forms of injustice, wars, and inequality today. God cannot tolerate this attitude. The Word of God warns us - as will Jesus - by clearly affirming that there can be no settlement or agreement between serving God and serving wealth. The prophetic word sounds as a serious warning: people and nations that only seek their own interests, believing themselves to be masters of other people’s lives and of the world’s resources will be thrust "down to the Pit," because God lifts up "the lowly" and brings down the proud and scatters them "in the thoughts of their hearts" while he sends "the rich away empty." This reveals who we really are and what we all need to recognize ourselves to be: we are poor and weak men and women, not omnipotent gods. Ezekiel speaks this warning twice. He knows that in everyone’s heart is rooted the temptation to take God’s place, to become our own master in a delirium of omnipotence. In reality we are fragile, weak, and mortal. Let us go back to looking at our lives with humility to keep from giving in [or surrendering] to the temptation of power and wealth, which produces so much evil in the world and creates some many injustices and great misery.
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
