Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I am the good shepherd,
my sheep listen to my voice,
and they become
one flock and one fold.
.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Colossians 3,12-17
As the chosen of God, then, the holy people whom he loves, you are to be clothed in heartfelt compassion, in generosity and humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with one another; forgive each other if one of you has a complaint against another. The Lord has forgiven you; now you must do the same. Over all these clothes, put on love, the perfect bond. And may the peace of Christ reign in your hearts, because it is for this that you were called together in one body. Always be thankful. Let the Word of Christ, in all its richness, find a home with you. Teach each other, and advise each other, in all wisdom. With gratitude in your hearts sing psalms and hymns and inspired songs to God; and whatever you say or do, let it be in the name of the Lord Jesus, in thanksgiving to God the Father through him.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The apostle calls the Christians "God's chosen ones, holy and beloved." Begotten by God's love, believers are set apart in order to belong to him and delight in his friendship like beloved children. And if Christ, the perfect image of God, has become the entire life of a believer, he or she should base his or her behaviour on Christ and become more and more similar to him. It is not by chance that the five virtues mentioned by the apostle at the beginning of this passage (v. 12) recall God and Christ's own behaviour towards Israel. The apostle insists on two attitudes: mutual tolerance and forgiveness. We could say that love tolerates and forgives because its objective is communion between the brothers and sisters and unity in the community. For the apostle, love is more than a virtue: it is the very spirit of God poured out into the believer's heart. Paul takes the image of clothing and asks Christians to spread God's love over the virtues he has just named like a cloak that covers them all. Indeed love is what "binds everything together in perfect harmony," that is, the bond that holds all the virtues together and makes the communion between brothers and sisters strong and solid. Agape is the source of every virtue and the goal toward which they all point: communion with God and with our brothers and sisters. Consequently, the apostle reminds his readers of the centrality of the Word, which in a certain sense presides over love, because the Church lives on the Word of God, which makes Jesus himself present among the disciples. The Gospel is not just a text to study: it is a sacrament of Christ, a place of encounter between Jesus and the believer. The Word, welcomed and lived, becomes the foundation of the community's unity and the source of the songs of joy and thanksgiving that rise up to God because of the gift of salvation. The experience of meeting the risen Jesus in the context of the community that listens and prays gives the believer the drive to live out love everywhere, beyond every boundary.
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!
