Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a people acquired by God
to proclaim his marvellous works.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Revelation 15,1-4
And I saw in heaven another sign, great and wonderful: seven angels were bringing the seven plagues that are the last of all, because they exhaust the anger of God. I seemed to be looking at a sea of crystal suffused with fire, and standing by the lake of glass, those who had fought against the beast and won, and against his statue and the number which is his name. They all had harps from God, and they were singing the hymn of Moses, the servant of God, and the hymn of the Lamb: How great and wonderful are all your works, Lord God Almighty; upright and true are all your ways, King of nations. Who does not revere and glorify your name, O Lord? For you alone are holy, and all nations will come and adore you for the many acts of saving justice you have shown.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The last set of seven that appears before the end-time now opens. We are at the end of time, and judgment is about to occur. The seven angels who blew the trumpets are now replaced by seven angels who each hold a cup. The apostle speaks of a sea of glass on which stand the witnesses of Christ, those who resisted the Beast. And, as the Hebrews did after crossing the Red Sea, they sing a hymn of praise to the Lord for his wonders; they do not sing their witness; they do not sing their own praises; they do not expect any privileges because of their works, as we are usually tempted to do. They praise, the "great and amazing...deeds" of God. It is the Lord, in fact, who strengthened them, protected them, and saved them. They have clear the primacy of God over their lives, rather over the entire human history. Revelation presents them to us so that they can teach us how to act before God and how to direct our praises to Him. Their song is woven together from biblical citations, as if to remind us of how precious the Bible is as a resource for our prayer. Let us think of the beauty and strength of the prayer of psalms. Very efficaciously someone defined them as the words God put on our lips so that when we say them we are sure that they reach and touch His heart. At the end of their song, John sees the tent of witnesses open in heaven. According to the tradition of Israel, the tent was the place where God revealed himself to his people, a place of mercy and love, not a place of anger and punishment. Every assembly of prayer should become like the tent of witness and 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
