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
Judges 6,11-24a
The Angel of Yahweh came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah which belonged to Joash of Abiezer. Gideon his son was threshing wheat inside the wine-press, to keep it hidden from Midian, and the Angel of Yahweh appeared to him and said, 'Yahweh is with you, valiant warrior!' Gideon replied, 'Excuse me, my lord, but if Yahweh is with us, why is all this happening to us? And where are all his miracles which our ancestors used to tell us about when they said, "Did not Yahweh bring us out of Egypt?" But now Yahweh has deserted us; he has abandoned us to Midian.' At this, Yahweh turned to him and said, 'Go in this strength of yours, and you will rescue Israel from the power of Midian. Am I not sending you myself?' Gideon replied, 'Forgive me, my lord, but how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh and I am the least important of my father's family.' Yahweh replied, 'I shall be with you and you will crush Midian as though it were one man.' Gideon said, 'If I have found favour in your sight, give me a sign that you are speaking to me. Please do not go away from here until I come back to you, bringing you my offering and laying it before you.' And he replied, 'I shall stay until you come back.' Gideon went away, he prepared a young goat and from an ephah of flour he made unleavened cakes. He put the meat into a basket and the broth into a pot, then brought it all to him under the terebinth. As he approached, the Angel of Yahweh said to him, 'Take the meat and unleavened cakes, put them on this rock and pour the broth over them.' Gideon did so. The Angel of Yahweh then stretched out the tip of the staff which he was carrying, and touched the meat and unleavened cakes. Fire sprang from the rock and consumed the meat and unleavened cakes, and the Angel of Yahweh vanished before his eyes. Gideon then knew that this was the Angel of Yahweh, and he said, 'Alas, my Lord Yahweh! Now I have seen the Angel of Yahweh face to face!' Yahweh answered, 'Peace be with you; have no fear; you will not die.' Gideon built an altar there to Yahweh and called it Yahweh-Peace. This altar stands in our own day at Ophrah of Abiezer.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The story of Deborah, the prophetess and judge, immediately precedes the cycle of Gideon, which takes up three chapters. The story opens by recounting the slavery under the yoke of the Midianites who force the Israelites to work for them. At the end of the work, in fact, they seize their entire crop. Gideon, however, tries to trick them by keeping the harvest. Meanwhile Israel did not cease to pray to the Lord that they may once again be freed from slavery. The Lord sees the suffering of his people, he hears their prayer and decides to intervene. The Lord then reveals himself to Gideon while he is working. God presents himself in the guise of an angel who speaks directly to Gideon, as he did with Abraham and Moses. The Lord reveals himself always as a word. "The Lord is with you." Gideon's response to this greeting is plural: "But sir, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us?" For Gideon it was clear that the call of the Lord is never individual, it is for all the people which he represents at that moment. Gideon is not worried for himself or for his personal future, but for the entire people of Israel. The Lord responds by choosing the same Gideon and sending him to win the same evil he complains about, "Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian." Gideon is scared by this answer. How can he, the youngest of a family among the poorest, fight an enemy as powerful as the Midianites? But nothing is impossible with God. The Lord has different criteria than the human ones: he chooses what the world despises. It is a kind of law that fills the entire Bible. The strength of Gideon is in the Lord himself: "I will be with you, and you shall strike down the Midianites." Gideon begins to welcome these words. But he still wants to continue the dialogue with God to be sure that he is the one talking to him. We could say he wants to "see" God with his own eyes. And he "sees" in the context of hospitality. Gideon, as a liturgical gesture, offers his guest some food, but it is the same guest who touches it and makes it holy. And then the angel of the Lord vanished from his eyes. It looks like an anticipation of the meeting of Emmaus. From the very beginning of the history of salvation, hospitality and welcome appear as the place of encounter with God. Jesus says, "I was hungry ... I was a stranger and you welcomed me" (Mt 25:31-46). And the Letter to the Hebrews points out: "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers; for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it "(13:2).
Modlitwa jest sercem życia Wspólnoty Sant’Egidio, jej pierwszym „dziełem”. Na zakończenie dnia każda Wspólnota, niezależnie czy mała czy duża, zbiera się wokół Pana, aby słuchać Jego Słowa i zanosić do Niego swe prośby. Uczniowie nie mogą uczynić więcej niż siąść u stóp Jezusa jak Maria z Betanii, aby wybrać „najlepszą cząstkę” (Łk 10, 42) i uczyć się jak mieć te same co On uczucia (por. Flp 2,1-5).
Wracając do Pana za każdym razem Wspólnota czyni własną prośbę anonimowego ucznia: "Panie, naucz nas się modlić!” (Łk 11, 1). I Jezus, nauczyciel modlitwy, nieprzerwanie odpowiada: „Kiedy się modlicie, mówcie: Ojcze nasz”.
Kiedy człowiek się modli, także w cichości własnego serca, nigdy nie jest odizolowany od innych czy opuszczony: zawsze jest członkiem rodziny Pana. W modlitwie wspólnotowej poza tajemnicą usynowienia jasno ukazuje się również tajemnica braterstwa.
Wspólnoty Sant’Egidio rozsiane po świecie zbierają się w różnych miejscach wybranych na modlitwę i przynoszą Panu nadzieje i cierpienia „znękanych i porzuconych tłumów”, o których mówi Ewangelia (por. Mt 9, 36-37). Należą do tych tłumów także mieszkańcy współczesnych miast, ubodzy zepchnięci na margines życia, wszyscy ci, którzy oczekują, że zostaną najęci choć na dzień (por. Mt 20).
Modlitwa Wspólnoty gromadzi wołania, dążenia, pragnienia pokoju, uzdrowienia, poczucia sensu i zbawienia, którymi żyją mężczyźni i kobiety tego świata. Modlitwa nigdy nie jest pusta. Nieustannie wznosi się do Pana, aby płacz zmienił się w radość, desperacja w pogodę ducha, przygnębienie w nadzieję, samotność w zjednoczenie. I aby Królestwo Boże jak najszybciej zamieszkało między ludźmi.
