EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Saints and the Prophets
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Saints and the Prophets
Wednesday, April 14


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

John 3,16-21

For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but so that through him the world might be saved. No one who believes in him will be judged; but whoever does not believe is judged already, because that person does not believe in the Name of God's only Son. And the judgement is this: though the light has come into the world people have preferred darkness to the light because their deeds were evil. And indeed, everybody who does wrong hates the light and avoids it, to prevent his actions from being shown up; but whoever does the truth comes out into the light, so that what he is doing may plainly appear as done in God.'

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." With this sentence of Jesus to Nicodemus, John offers us a synthesis of his Gospel. Jesus is the Father's gift to humanity, a gift that springs from a limitless love for all. God's desire for human beings, so that they do not to get lost in the coils of evil, is so great that He decides to send His own Son to free them from the slavery of evil and lead them to salvation. The sending of the Son on earth by the Father and the Son's love for us, which reaches death on the Cross, show that Gospel love is a gift, a service, a readiness to give one's life for the salvation of others. This is the love - Jesus says to Nicodemus - which explains the mystery of his coming into the world. It is not to condemn, but to save men and women from evil and free them from all slavery. The horizon that includes this mystery of salvation is, precisely, love: God's love for us and, consequently, our loving response to God. Faith is the substance of love: God does not want subjects, but men and women who love Him. Faith - and therefore salvation - consists in accepting the boundless and gratuitous love of Jesus. Whoever welcomes him as the Father's envoy is a believer, and is therefore already saved. Whoever rejects this love is already judged, not by Jesus but by their own rejection because they shun the power of love which frees them from the coils of evil. And they remain in the darkness of love for themselves. It is love that Christians are called to bear witness to in a world harshly tried by the evil of the pandemic, by growing poverty and by the violence of selfishness. The frontier that awaits Christians in this time is that of fraternity among all peoples. The "children of the Resurrection" are called to witness the freeing efficaciousness of God's love that was manifested in Jesus.

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!