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 17,7-10
'Which of you, with a servant ploughing or minding sheep, would say to him when he returned from the fields, "Come and have your meal at once"? Would he not be more likely to say, "Get my supper ready; fasten your belt and wait on me while I eat and drink. You yourself can eat and drink afterwards"? Must he be grateful to the servant for doing what he was told? So with you: when you have done all you have been told to do, say, "We are useless servants: we have done no more than our duty." '
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Lord speaks to his disciples; he wants to have an intimate dialogue with each one of them, and even with us. He knows his own, one by one; he has called them to follow him and live with him. He knows very well how easy it is to leave room for pride in one's heart and to have a grand self-image, or even to feel good and consider oneself to be the first actor of one's work. And so, he asks them to compare themselves with what servants are called to do. Unlike the master, they are not the first in the house, but precisely the servants. None of us is the master of his or her life; only the Lord is. Life is given to each of us so that we can not only enjoy it, but also spend it for the good of all. We have received much, without deserving it: health, well-being, peace, intelligence, love, faith; we are not owners of all these gifts, but rather guardians and administrators. Even Jesus presented himself as one who serves and not one who must be served. And at the last supper, he showed this unequivocally, assuming the likeness of a slave who washes the feet of his master. Following this example of Jesus, the disciple is called to serve and, like pope Francis has often reminded us: "Those who do not live to serve, do not serve to live." Living with this spirit of service frees us from the prison of selfishness, from the anxiety of accumulating goods and satisfactions for ourselves. The disciples know that they have received everything and they need to give back all to him. And this is the meaning of being unworthy servants. The Lord has chosen us and entrusted us with a task we are called to fulfil not our own fulfilment but rather to serve his dream of love for the world, knowing that we receive all from him and that without him, we are indeed "unworthy" servants, that is, powerless.
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!
