EVERYDAY PRAYER

Memory of the Mother of the Lord
Word of god every day
Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the Mother of the Lord
Tuesday, June 15


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

Matthew 5,43-48

'You have heard how it was said, You will love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say this to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you; so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on the bad as well as the good, and sends down rain to fall on the upright and the wicked alike. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Do not even the tax collectors do as much? And if you save your greetings for your brothers, are you doing anything exceptional? Do not even the gentiles do as much? You must therefore be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.'

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

After reminding his disciples about the common say taken from the Book of Leviticus: "You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy," (19:18) Jesus proposes his Gospel which turns the say upside down: "But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." The commandment of love for the enemy is the heart of Gospel message. It was quoted often in the first Christian texts and is presented as the new and proper aspect of Christianity of which pagans are greatly astonished. It was one of the central dimensions of the missionary preaching. Only in the Gospel, however, is there the theme of "love" for enemies while they are, in fact, enemies. It is precisely love for the enemies in their wickedness. It is not a question of loving them too, but of precisely loving them. And the reason for this love lies in God's own behaviour. The commandment of love for the enemy does not correspond to a supposed harmony of creation, but to a direct revelation of God, of his very being. That is why love is the first of the commandments. Exactly because "God is love" for all. Love is therefore the heart of the life of the disciple and of the Church: it is her true wisdom. This love is in stark contrast with a conception of human wisdom that includes feelings of hatred and vengeance as reasonable. Jesus put it into practice when, from the cross, he prayed for his executioners. And many martyrs, starting from Stephen, lived with the same spirit. Certainly, this kind of love does not come from men and women and even less from the natural outpouring of our hearts: it comes from Heaven, from God who lets his sun rise on the good and the evil, without partiality. God grants His love to all gratuitously. Disciples are called to live in this horizon of love that comes from Heaven and transforms the Earth. There is a "beyond" of the Gospel that we cannot suppress: "46For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?" If we welcome his love, we are on the way to God's perfection. In a time when the logic of opposition and the search for the enemy reign, the exhortation to love our enemies is liberating. Only thus love truly prevails.

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR

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!

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR