Reading of the Word of God
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Matthew 5,43-48
'You have heard how it was said, You will love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say this to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you; so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on the bad as well as the good, and sends down rain to fall on the upright and the wicked alike. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Do not even the tax collectors do as much? And if you save your greetings for your brothers, are you doing anything exceptional? Do not even the gentiles do as much? You must therefore be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.'
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Jesus continues with the speech of antithesis. After reminding his disciples the common mentality of the time: "You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy," Jesus proposes his Gospel: "But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Jesus proposes love, the first commandment, as the heart of the life each disciple and of the Church. The true wisdom of life is certainly not to be driven by hatred and revenge. Unfortunately, these feelings and attitudes, which have always been present in every human being, do not cease to make their strength felt and unfortunately also their semblance of normality. It is easy to think that it is normal to defend oneself against those who mean harm. Jesus, however, asks us to go deeper into the hearts of people and of life itself. This is why, in a completely paradoxical but decisive manner, he goes as far as to ask his disciples to love even their enemies. Is this not an abstract and unrealisable utopia? Should we not apply to this page what the disciples said in Capernaum when confronted with Jesus' claim to be the bread of life: "This word is hard"? Though shocking these words were first put into practice by Jesus himself, when from the top of the cross he prayed for his executioners. And how many martyrs, starting with Stephen, have lived with the same spirit! Of course, such love does not come from human beings, much less flow naturally from our hearts: it comes from above, from God who makes the sun rise on the just and the unjust, without difference. None of us deserve to be loved for our own merits, very few if any. As a holy monk of the Christian East, Silvanus of Mount Athos, wrote: "If we love our enemies, there will be no room in our souls for pride, for love in the likeness of Christ puts no one above another... When the soul quiets its passion and becomes humble, the Lord gives it his grace, and then it prays for its enemies as for itself and sheds heartfelt tears for the whole world." The disciples live in this horizon of love. There must therefore be a paradoxical dimension in the lives of Christians: it is the paradox of a love that comes from heaven but transforms the earth.
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
