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
Ecclesiastes 3,1-11
There is a season for everything, a time for every occupation under heaven: A time for giving birth, a time for dying; a time for planting, a time for uprooting what has been planted. A time for killing, a time for healing; a time for knocking down, a time for building. A time for tears, a time for laughter; a time for mourning, a time for dancing. A time for throwing stones away, a time for gathering them; a time for embracing, a time to refrain from embracing. A time for searching, a time for losing; a time for keeping, a time for discarding. A time for tearing, a time for sewing; a time for keeping silent, a time for speaking. A time for loving, a time for hating; a time for war, a time for peace. What do people gain from the efforts they make? I contemplate the task that God gives humanity to labour at. All that he does is apt for its time; but although he has given us an awareness of the passage of time, we can grasp neither the beginning nor the end of what God does.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Therefore, being aware of the "time" is a sign of wisdom. By arranging the passage in seven pairs of polar-opposites, Qohelet wants to encompass the entirety of human life with its different "seasons" and "events." But human beings do not weave their own lives. We are not the ones who choose to be born or die, nor can we eliminate the "poles" that mark our lives. There is an order to everything, "for everything there is a season," Qohelet tells us. The list presented by the author is meant to eliminate the idea of disorder of human life and of creation. But it is not given to human beings to understand its meaning and even less to direct it. A lordly attitude towards time and creation has produced disorder and danger in human existence on earth. The text recalls the misery of human knowledge and the foolishness in reducing existence to a multiple and varied "doing" that is not only meaningless but often harmful. People labour to achieve results, to reach goals, to build the "world," but they are not its masters. Human beings even come to be a slave to their own destruction and disfigurement. Yet we continue to plunder creation. Why toil? Qohelet dismisses the idea that God is wrong and reminds us that "he has made everything suitable for its time;" it is therefore "suitable" to be born and "suitable" to die; it is "suitable" to love and also to hate, and so on. The whole of creation has its own intimate harmony that must not only be respected but also understood in its order. But God has put "eternity in their hearts." This is the truest sense of the biblical affirmation that we have been created in God's "image and likeness," having eternity in their hearts. It is true that man cannot understand the meaning of the "times" that follow one another, but he can grasp eternity, the "time" of God, if he lets love to ferment his days. We are all mortal, but the love that envelops us, the love of God, is not mortal.
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
