Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a people acquired by God
to proclaim his marvellous works.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Sirach 4,11-19
Wisdom brings up her own children and cares for those who seek her. Whoever loves her loves life, those who seek her early will be filled with joy. Whoever possesses her will inherit honour, and wherever he walks the Lord will bless him. Those who serve her minister to the Holy One, and the Lord loves those who love her. Whoever obeys her rules the nations, whoever pays attention to her dwells secure. If he trusts himself to her he will inherit her, and his descendants will remain in possession of her; for though she takes him at first through winding ways, bringing fear and faintness on him, trying him out with her discipline till she can trust him, and testing him with her ordeals, she then comes back to him on the straight road, makes him happy and reveals her secrets to him. If he goes astray, however, she abandons him and leaves him to his own destruction.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
We are faced with a description of the value of wisdom and of the fruits it provides for those who seek it faithfully. Wisdom and the Word of God go hand in hand in the book of Sirach. Looking for one means listening to the other. The author immediately indicates the secret of wisdom: "Whoever loves wisdom loves life." For this reason, it is necessary to look for it from the morning in order to live according to it and not according to oneself, which is the continuous temptation of each one that easily makes oneself teacher to oneself. To venerate wisdom, to listen to it, to trust in it, are the invitation that is given to us in order to live fully. Wisdom is necessary to understand the time we live in and also to know ourselves. The author knows that acquiring the wisdom that comes from God involves work. Its acquisition is not immediate. At the beginning wisdom leads "on tortuous paths" and that "torments with its discipline." It is a matter of accepting the effort of living according to wisdom, the word that comes from God, which does not always appear immediately clear, and which requires "discipline" and commitment which may also appear annoying. But then, once this effort is accepted, wisdom makes life joyful and helps to discern evil and be ashamed of sin. Instead, there is a "shame" which is the right awareness of oneself, of one's limit, and which therefore brings "glory and grace." Let us welcome the richness of this reflection so that each of us accept the effort of growing at the school of the Word of God.
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
