The prayer for peace is held in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere. Read more
The prayer for peace is held in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere.
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
Psalm 110, 1-4
1 The Lord says to my lord,
Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies your footstool.’
2 The Lord sends out from Zion
your mighty sceptre.
Rule in the midst of your foes.
3 Your people will offer themselves willingly
on the day you lead your forces
on the holy mountains.
From the womb of the morning,
like dew, your youth will come to you.
4 The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind,
You are a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek.’
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Psalm 110, which the liturgy has us sing today, is the most cited psalm in the New Testament. Jesus applied it to himself when he responded to the high priest who was asking him about his identity: “You have said so. But I tell you, From now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Mt 26:64). With this answer, Jesus explained the messianic meaning of the psalm. And our faith has us sing the psalmist’s prayer in this spirit. The king is raised to the highest possible dignity: “Sit at my right hand” the Lord God tells him (v.1). God’s own majesty is revealed in that of the king. In the same way, the history of Israel, with its prophets and kings, leads towards the messianic future that culminates in Jesus, who dies and rises and who is seated at the “right hand of God,” as we say in the Creed. This psalm is a meditation on the absolute primacy of God and His dominion over the world. This is a firm point in both the Old and New Testament. The true king is always and only the Lord. Consequently, this psalm is a radical refutation of all deception and of every claim to direct history. The Lord alone directs history and defeats his enemies, and those of his people, making them his footstool (v. 1). Every good and just thing is from the Lord. The apostle Paul reminds the Corinthians of this: “For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For God has put all things in subjection under his feet” (1 Cor 15:25-27). The risen Jesus continues his work of salvation. The Latin Church has us close the liturgical year with the feast of Christ, king of the universe. The Father gave this priestly responsibility to the Son, whom He raised from the dead. This has been God’s plan from the beginning of the story of salvation with Abraham; as the psalmist suggests: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’” (v. 4). The Lord gives the Church, the body of Christ, the responsibility of being prophet, king, and priest. The priestly role given to the entire community of believers is to bless the entire world in God’s name, that is, to free it from every form of slavery (enemies become “your footstool”) and completely defeating evil (“he will fill them with corpses, he will shatter heads over the wide earth”). This is the power of love and healing which the Lord grants to his disciples so that, with the Risen One at their right hand, they might hasten the coming of the Kingdom on earth.
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
