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
Matthew 10,16-23
Look, I am sending you out like sheep among wolves; so be cunning as snakes and yet innocent as doves. 'Be prepared for people to hand you over to sanhedrins and scourge you in their synagogues. You will be brought before governors and kings for my sake, as evidence to them and to the gentiles. But when you are handed over, do not worry about how to speak or what to say; what you are to say will be given to you when the time comes, because it is not you who will be speaking; the Spirit of your Father will be speaking in you. 'Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will come forward against their parents and have them put to death. You will be universally hated on account of my name; but anyone who stands firm to the end will be saved. If they persecute you in one town, take refuge in the next; and if they persecute you in that, take refuge in another. In truth I tell you, you will not have gone the round of the towns of Israel before the Son of man comes.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Jesus announces to his disciples that they will be persecuted. Gospel love, completely gratuitous and non-reciprocal, disturbs the work of the prince of this world, which is to bring about division. This is why Jesus says, "See, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves." Sheep are always weaker than wolves, and always seem to be doomed to defeat. But this is the mystery of Jesus' mission which he confided to his Church. Father Andrea Santoro, who was killed in Turkey, said, "The advantage for us as Christians is to believe in a defenceless God, in a God who became a sacrificial lamb in order to kill self-pride and hate, in a God who attracts with love and refuses to dominate with power, in a Christ who invites us to love our enemies, in a Gospel that forbids hatred, wrath, judging, that calls us to serve in order to be "masters" of the house, and to become the last in order to be the first. This is an advantage that we cannot lose." He then quoted John Chrysostom, "Christ tends lambs, not wolves. If we are lambs we will win, if we become wolves we will lose." When Christians are humble and simple as "doves," they confront, with their words and their behaviour, selfishness and unmask it. Then from the attempt to eliminate the true witnesses of faith, persecution and suffering ensue. For us who live in the Third Millennium, we must learn from the Gospel to understand when it is no longer possible to compromise with a world intent on suffocating the Word of God by silencing those who witness to it. When faced with injustices such as the suffering of the weakest, the elimination of life, the wounds of a world disproportionately divided between many poor and a few rich, the disciple cannot remain silent, even when confronted by opposition, but must proclaim with his/her life that he/she is a child of God and not of this world. We are encouraged and consoled by the words of Jesus in today's Gospel: "But the one who endures to the end will be saved."
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
