First Sunday of Lent Read more
First Sunday of Lent
Reading of the Gospel
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Luke 4, 1-13
Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert,
for forty days being put to the test by the devil. During that time he ate nothing and at the end he was hungry.
Then the devil said to him, 'If you are Son of God, tell this stone to turn into a loaf.'
But Jesus replied, 'Scripture says: Human beings live not on bread alone.'
Then leading him to a height, the devil showed him in a moment of time all the kingdoms of the world
and said to him, 'I will give you all this power and their splendour, for it has been handed over to me, for me to give it to anyone I choose.
Do homage, then, to me, and it shall all be yours.'
But Jesus answered him, 'Scripture says: You must do homage to the Lord your God, him alone you must serve.'
Then he led him to Jerusalem and set him on the parapet of the Temple. 'If you are Son of God,' he said to him, 'throw yourself down from here,
for scripture says: He has given his angels orders about you, to guard you, and again:
They will carry you in their arms in case you trip over a stone.'
But Jesus answered him, 'Scripture says: Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'
Having exhausted every way of putting him to the test, the devil left him, until the opportune moment.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
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
