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, September 27


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

Job 3,1-3.11-17.20-23

In the end it was Job who broke the silence and cursed the day of his birth. This is what he said: Perish the day on which I was born and the night that told of a boy conceived. Why was I not still-born, or why did I not perish as I left the womb? Why were there knees to receive me, breasts for me to suck? Now I should be lying in peace, wrapped in a restful slumber, with the kings and high viziers of earth who have built their dwellings in desolate places, or with princes who have quantities of gold and silver cramming their tombs; or, put away like an abortive child, I should not have existed, like little ones that never see the light. Down there, the wicked bustle no more, there the weary rest. Why give light to a man of grief? Why give life to those bitter of heart, who long for a death that never comes, and hunt for it more than for buried treasure? They would be glad to see the grave-mound and shout with joy if they reached the tomb. Why give light to one who does not see his way, whom God shuts in all alone?

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

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

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The silence of his friends (and how often - as we know from our own experience - we do not know what to say when faced with pain!) is shattered by Job's cry, which, like the poor and the sick in the psalms, turns to God in prayer, and his prayer is like a great lament questioning the meaning of the existence of a person who is suffering. So begins Job's great protest, which questions divine justice, without lashing out against God. It is a recurrent question that human beings have been asking throughout history: why do the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper? Job does not speak against God. He does not curse Him. He knows that his God is the Lord of life. But what senses does a life have when it is marked by death and suffering like his? Job calls into question his entire life, from birth to death. His words are sharp and hard. He begins by cursing his birth: why could he not have died before he was born, since all he has is darkness? In his words we can see the drama of so many suffering people whose lives are dangling by a thread and who seem to be doomed to death: children who are never born or who are sick, prisoners and those condemned to death, the terminally ill, and the elderly who are abandoned. Job's words also contain great wisdom: they help us think about the meaning of life and death, which seems inevitable. No one can escape it: it strikes the rich and the poor indiscriminately, the powerful and those who do not count, the prisoner and his jailer, the little and the great, the master and the slave. So why do we wear ourselves out chasing ourselves, Job seems to say. That is how fear enters human life: "Truly the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me."

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