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Memory of the apostles
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Memory of the apostles

Feast of Saint Matthew, apostle and evangelist. Read more

Libretto DEL GIORNO
Memory of the apostles
Tuesday, September 21

Feast of Saint Matthew, apostle and evangelist.


Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

If we die with him, we shall live with him,
if with him we endure, with him we shall reign.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Matthew 9,9-13

As Jesus was walking on from there he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, 'Follow me.' And he got up and followed him. Now while he was at table in the house it happened that a number of tax collectors and sinners came to sit at the table with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, 'Why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners?' When he heard this he replied, 'It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. Go and learn the meaning of the words: Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice. And indeed I came to call not the upright, but sinners.'

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

If we die with him, we shall live with him,
if with him we endure, with him we shall reign.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Today the Church celebrates Matthew, apostle and evangelist. The first of the four Gospels takes his name: Matthew. He was a tax collector; this job was considered dishonourable by his countrymen because he collected taxes for the Roman dominant power. Jesus was walking by in Capernaum, and saw Matthew, and, instead of passing by spitefully like everyone else, he stopped and called him: "Follow me!" One word, evidently very powerful, was enough and Matthew "got up and followed him." The initiative is all Jesus', exclusively his. For Jesus, as in the case of the bad reputation experienced by the tax collectors, the condition in which everyone finds himself is not relevant to become his disciple. In Jesus' call there is a mystery of love marked by total gratuitousness. The intuition of such love makes Matthew get up from his desk and follow the Master. From that moment Matthew's life changed. Pope Francis chose as his motto a phrase that a Father of the Church, Bede the Venerable, used to describe the strength of this call: "Miserando atque eligendo", "looking with mercy he chose him." That call was the fruit of mercy. Matthew did not sit collecting taxes anymore; he became a disciple and gathered sinners to celebrate around Jesus. The world - it is the Pharisees' harsh reaction - does not understand what is happening, but this is the innovation of the Gospel that is disconcerting to the majority of people: everyone's heart, with no exceptions, can be touched and everyone can change his or her life, starting from sinners. In front of the objections posed to the disciples, Jesus answers: "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick." And recalling Hosea he adds: "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." With the Gospel that bears his name, Matthew continues to remind us of the primacy of the Word of God in our life. Let us listen to it, as Matthew and the other disciples of any time did, and let us begin to follow Jesus to be part of the realization of the kingdom of God from now in our cities.

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