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
John 17,1-11a
After saying this, Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said: Father, the hour has come: glorify your Son so that your Son may glorify you; so that, just as you have given him power over all humanity, he may give eternal life to all those you have entrusted to him. And eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I have glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. Now, Father, glorify me with that glory I had with you before ever the world existed. I have revealed your name to those whom you took from the world to give me. They were yours and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now at last they have recognised that all you have given me comes from you for I have given them the teaching you gave to me, and they have indeed accepted it and know for certain that I came from you, and have believed that it was you who sent me. It is for them that I pray. I am not praying for the world but for those you have given me, because they belong to you. All I have is yours and all you have is mine, and in them I am glorified. I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep those you have given me true to your name, so that they may be one like us.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Gospel gives us the first part of the prayer Jesus makes to the Father at the end of his long speech to his disciples. And he begins his long prayer with the term of address that is unique to him: "Father." He had used this term on two other occasions: before the resurrection of Lazarus and when Philip presented the two Greek men to him. Jesus knows that his "hour" has come: the climax of his mission, the reason he had come to earth. And he asks the "Father" to "glorify him," that is, to complete the mission for which the Father had sent him among men and women: to let the disciples share in eternal life. And he explains it thus: "This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." In effect, this had been Jesus' work. Now he wants to present his disciples to the Father. "They were yours, and you gave them to me," as if to emphasize that the disciples were not chosen at random. That small group is the fruit of prayer. They are a gift of the Father. After all, Jesus says repeatedly that he came to do the Father's will, not his own. And that is what he taught the disciples. He truly turned them towards his Father in heaven. And he says as much, "Now they know that everything you have given me is from you." Now they are the heirs of this revelation, which they in turn must communicate to others. Jesus is about to entrust them with his own work. He knows them well, one by one. He knows their good qualities but also their weaknesses, defects, and pettiness. His prayer to the Father is a prayer for them, "I am asking on their behalf." Jesus' spirit is heavy with thoughts and concerns. His greatest concern now is for his disciples, not for himself or for what awaits him. Before long, at Gethsemane, he will place his concerns about the cup he is to drink in the Father's hands, even though he completely entrusted himself to Him. But now his prayer is for that little group of disciples. And he commits them to the Father's protection. Jesus knows that the prince of evil will make every effort to snatch them from the Gospel. Now that he is leaving this world, he wants the Father to be the one who will keep and protect them. It is a prayer that Jesus still makes today, in heaven, asking the Father to keep watch over all his disciples and free them from evil. It is the true "priestly" prayer for all people.
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
