EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Mother of the Lord
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Mother of the Lord
Tuesday, October 12


Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.
The child you shall bear will be holy.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Luke 11,37-41

He had just finished speaking when a Pharisee invited him to dine at his house. He went in and sat down at table. The Pharisee saw this and was surprised that he had not first washed before the meal. But the Lord said to him, 'You Pharisees! You clean the outside of cup and plate, while inside yourselves you are filled with extortion and wickedness. Fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside too? Instead, give alms from what you have and, look, everything will be clean for you.

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The Gospel passage presents to us a Pharisee who invites Jesus to dine at his home. For Jesus these meals are a precious opportunity to show the value of welcome and hospitality: those meals seem to suggest the image of the Kingdom where the breadth of welcome and the joy of communion count and certainly not the observance of ritual practices. Jesus realizes the malevolent soul of the Pharisee, without him opening his mouth. But he answers him even before he speaks. Jesus does not respond to the ritual question that worried the Pharisee. He moves it to another plane, that of the heart. His speech is particularly harsh. Jesus immediately makes it clear to the Pharisee that what counts in life is not appearance, even if correct, but being a man and a woman with a merciful heart. We must say that also in our society where appearances count more than being and merc, this brief Gospel passage refocuses our attention on what is truly important in life. It is in the heart, in the inner part, that a person's life, happiness, and salvation are played out. If our heart is full of wickedness, then our actions will be wicked too. It does not count multiplying gestures and actions if our heart is full of "greed and wickedness." Rather, Jesus urges his listeners to "give for alms those things that are within," that is, to give the love that is in our hearts. True wealth is the love that every believer receives from God and not the multiplication of rituals we practice. The whole biblical tradition, which reaches its climax in the Gospel, urges Christians to give alms, not because it is the "solution" to social problems, but because it is the first step towards love: giving alms forces us to turn our gaze from ourselves towards the needy and to give them something, even if just a little. Woe to those who would stop a heart from taking this first step beyond itself. If we do that, we will remain trapped in our selfishness.

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