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
Mark 12,28b-34
Jesus replied, 'This is the first: Listen, Israel, the Lord our God is the one, only Lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: You must love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.' The scribe said to him, 'Well spoken, Master; what you have said is true, that he is one and there is no other. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself, this is far more important than any burnt offering or sacrifice.' Jesus, seeing how wisely he had spoken, said, 'You are not far from the kingdom of God.' And after that no one dared to question him any more.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
A scribe, who knows the Law well, comes near and asks Jesus which is the first commandment. This scribe comes to Jesus with a sincere heart, not to put him to the test, but to hear his opinion on a debated question. Wise people know that they cannot be their own teachers. We all need to learn. That is why we continue to ask the Lord to open our minds to the meaning of Scripture. The scribe asks which is the first commandment. And Jesus responds that the "first commandment" asks us to love God and the "second commandment" asks us to love our neighbour. They are two loves, but in reality, they are closely linked to one another. They cannot be separated, to the point that we could say that they are one love. Later the apostle John will write in his first Letter: "Those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen" (1 Jn 4:20). And Paul will see love of neighbour as the fullness of the Law: "Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law" (Rom 13:8). Jesus, who loved God above everything, more than his own life, and who loved men and women above everything, more than his own life, offers us the highest example of the commandment to love: to love God and neighbour with a passion that knows no limits. This scribe, satisfied by Jesus' answer, heard that he was not far from the kingdom of God. We have received much more than that scribe, and yet sometimes we are not satisfied. Instead we remain in our hardness of heart. Let us at least learn from that scribe how to be willing to ask for and ready to receive Jesus' teaching.
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
