Remembrance of Saint Therese of Lisieux (+1897), a Carmelite monk with a deep sense of mission of the Church. Többet
Remembrance of Saint Therese of Lisieux (+1897), a Carmelite monk with a deep sense of mission of the Church.
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
Luke 9,51-56
Now it happened that as the time drew near for him to be taken up, he resolutely turned his face towards Jerusalem and sent messengers ahead of him. These set out, and they went into a Samaritan village to make preparations for him, but the people would not receive him because he was making for Jerusalem. Seeing this, the disciples James and John said, 'Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to burn them up?' But he turned and rebuked them, and they went on to another village.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
With this passage, Luke begins the central part of his gospel, Jesus' journey with the disciples toward Jerusalem. The disciples wanted to stop him, but Jesus "with his face set" walked toward the holy city. With the expression "with his face set" the evangelist shows the firm will of the Teacher. Jesus did not remain in the places which were secure and familiar to him, safe from the violence of enemies. In other words, he did not want to yield to the temptation of the tranquillity of his own usual horizon, as it happens often to so many of us who may cover ourselves with the excuse of our limits, or our diocese, of our parish, of our neighbourhoods and so on. The Gospel does not stand limitations and provincialisms, even if this includes difficulties and clashes. Pope Francis repeats that the Gospel must go into the streets and reach the human and existential peripheries. It is destined to go there because it is in those places that it must bring freedom and comfort. Obedience to the Father and the urgency of the Gospel of love have absolute primacy in his life. Therefore, Jesus starts toward Jerusalem with decision, that is obeying God willingly and in a radical way. The evangelist notes that Jesus sent a few disciples before him to "prepare his entrance." The first stop would be a village in Samaria. However, the disciples who had reached the village found a distinct rejection by the Samaritans there. They did not want them to go toward Jerusalem, so much was their hostility toward the Hebrew capital. James and John-rightly annoyed-would like to exterminate the entire village. But Jesus responds with love to the coldness of who does not want to welcome him and, as the evangelist Luke notes, reprimands harshly the violent zeal of the two disciples. Once again, the gospel vision of life that Jesus proposes to us emerges again with clarity: for him there are no enemies to beat or to destroy, only people to love and to make brother and sister.
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!
