Reading of the Word of God
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.
The child you shall bear will be holy.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Matthew 18,21-35
Then Peter went up to him and said, 'Lord, how often must I forgive my brother if he wrongs me? As often as seven times?' Jesus answered, 'Not seven, I tell you, but seventy-seven times. 'And so the kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a king who decided to settle his accounts with his servants. When the reckoning began, they brought him a man who owed ten thousand talents; he had no means of paying, so his master gave orders that he should be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, to meet the debt. At this, the servant threw himself down at his master's feet, with the words, "Be patient with me and I will pay the whole sum." And the servant's master felt so sorry for him that he let him go and cancelled the debt. Now as this servant went out, he happened to meet a fellow-servant who owed him one hundred denarii; and he seized him by the throat and began to throttle him, saying, "Pay what you owe me." His fellow-servant fell at his feet and appealed to him, saying, "Be patient with me and I will pay you." But the other would not agree; on the contrary, he had him thrown into prison till he should pay the debt. His fellow-servants were deeply distressed when they saw what had happened, and they went to their master and reported the whole affair to him. Then the master sent for the man and said to him, "You wicked servant, I cancelled all that debt of yours when you appealed to me. Were you not bound, then, to have pity on your fellow-servant just as I had pity on you?" And in his anger the master handed him over to the torturers till he should pay all his debt. And that is how my heavenly Father will deal with you unless you each forgive your brother from your heart.'
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Peter approaches Jesus and asks him how many times he should forgive. In order to show his willingness, Peter makes a generous offer: seven times? His question is meant to go beyond the normal instinct of the law of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Basically, Peter is ready to bear the wrongs he receives beyond what is required. But in responding, Jesus abolishes every measure. Peter was looking for a measure, even a generous one, for forgiveness. But Jesus abolishes any measure. Instead he instructs Peter and the disciples to be ready for unlimited forgiveness: “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times,” that is, always. This is the only way to dismantle the mechanism that continuously regenerates sin, division, and revenge among men and women. Jesus then tells the parable of the king who is settling his accounts with his servants. One of them has an enormous debt: ten thousand talents (billions of dollars!). The servant mumbles a promise that truly he will never be able to keep and asks the king to be patient. At this point the king generously cancels his entire debt. We can imagine the joy of that servant. However his heart remains hardened. That gesture of extraordinary compassion did not even scratch the surface of his hardness of heart. His heart remains the same as before. In fact when he meets another servant who owed him a very small debt, he not only is not patient, as he had asked the king to be with him, but he seizes the servant by the throat and chokes him. The conclusion is tragic: his hardened and wicked heart leads him from the cancellation of his debt to the harshest of punishments. Those who allow themselves to be led by the hardness of their hearts will be punished by their same hardness. With this parable, Jesus reminds us that we are all debtors, and he invites us to thank the Lord for his great mercy that forgives everything. Let us be vigilant and try to imitate God’s mercy. We are quick to defend ourselves and we are inflexible to other people’s requests. This is why in the prayer of the Our Father Jesus has us say: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” The parable we heard makes us understand the seriousness of our request. Let us convert our heart to the Lord and welcome his mercy.
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
