EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of Jesus crucified
Word of god every day

Memory of Jesus crucified

Remembrance of Modesta, a homeless woman refused medical assistance because she was dirty and was left to die in the Termini train station in Rome in 1983. Along with her we remember all those without a home and succour who have died. Read more

Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of Jesus crucified
Friday, January 31

Remembrance of Modesta, a homeless woman refused medical assistance because she was dirty and was left to die in the Termini train station in Rome in 1983. Along with her we remember all those without a home and succour who have died.


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

2 Samuel 11,1-4.5-10.13-17

At the turn of the year, at the time when kings go campaigning, David sent Joab and with him his guards and all Israel. They massacred the Ammonites and laid siege to Rabbah-of-the-Ammonites. David, however, remained in Jerusalem. It happened towards evening when David had got up from resting and was strolling on the palace roof, that from the roof he saw a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. David made enquiries about this woman and was told, 'Why, that is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam and wife of Uriah the Hittite.' David then sent messengers to fetch her. She came to him, and he lay with her, just after she had purified herself from her period. She then went home again. The woman conceived and sent word to David, 'I am pregnant.' David then sent word to Joab, 'Send me Uriah the Hittite,' whereupon Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah reached him, David asked how Joab was and how the army was and how the war was going. David then said to Uriah, 'Go down to your house and wash your feet.' Uriah left the palace and was followed by a present from the king's table. Uriah, however, slept at the palace gate with all his master's bodyguard and did not go down to his house. This was reported to David; 'Uriah', they said 'has not gone down to his house.' So David asked Uriah, 'Haven't you just arrived from the journey? Why didn't you go down to your house?' The next day, David invited him to eat and drink in his presence and made him drunk. In the evening, Uriah went out and bedded down with his master's bodyguard, but did not go down to his house. Next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by Uriah. In the letter he wrote, 'Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest and then fall back, so that he gets wounded and killed.' Joab, then besieging the city, stationed Uriah at a point where he knew that there would be tough fighters. The people of the city sallied out and engaged Joab; there were casualties in the army, among David's guards, and Uriah the Hittite was killed as well.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The text tells of David's humiliating sin. His sin was not the result of a single act, but of a guilty chain of events that slipped lower and lower into the abyss of murder: temptation, giving in, adultery, betrayal of one of his bravest officers, cynicism, pretence and then the injustice perpetrated. These are the stages that show the boundless capacity of the human heart to commit evil if it is not vigilant and ready to break the chain of temptation. The tragic event begins with the king's desire to pass the spring in leisure, a time when kings usually go to war (v. 1). While he sends his army to combat the Ammonites, he remains in Jerusalem to enjoy his rest. This is the first stage of temptation. Choosing to think of his own satisfaction leads David to start down the path of sin. He stops to watch a woman taking a ritual bath (v. 3), it pleases him and then, blinded, he disregards everything in order to have her: God, who favoured him, his status as the anointed leader of his nation, and the evil that it will cause him and others. David, coming to know that Bathsheba is pregnant, tries to remedy what he has done at any cost. But his heart is hardened; he does not think of God or of others. He is moved only by the urgency to save himself from this difficult situation. And he puts his plan into action: to take her for his wife and send the husband, one of his oldest and most faithful friends, into battle to die. Never before has the Bible described so vividly the tragic reality of a man so afraid to take responsibility that he seeks to free himself of the weight that burdens him, giving no mind to committing further injustices that will harm innocent people in order to save himself. And David takes Bathsheba as his wife and she gives him a son. But, what David did displeased the Lord. He could hide the gravity of his crime from others, but not from God, who "looks on the heart" (1 Sam 16:7).

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR

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!

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR