Memory of the prayer for the new martyrs presided over by John Paul II at the Coliseum in Rome with the representatives of Christian churches during the Great Jubilee of the year 2000. Többet
Memory of the prayer for the new martyrs presided over by John Paul II at the Coliseum in Rome with the representatives of Christian churches during the Great Jubilee of the year 2000.
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
John 16,5-11
but now I am going to the one who sent me. Not one of you asks, 'Where are you going?' Yet you are sad at heart because I have told you this. Still, I am telling you the truth: it is for your own good that I am going, because unless I go, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will show the world how wrong it was, about sin, and about who was in the right, and about judgement: about sin: in that they refuse to believe in me; about who was in the right: in that I am going to the Father and you will see me no more; about judgement: in that the prince of this world is already condemned.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
For Jesus it is time to inaugurate the time of faith. We must not think that this time is poorer than that of the apostles. The Holy Spirit poured into the hearts of the disciples decides the time of the Church. It is the Spirit that sustains the disciples, consoles them, comforts them, guards them, enlightens them and enables them to communicate the Gospel of love to transform the world. The Spirit will help the disciples in the difficult times they will face. The Spirit will "prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgement." The evangelist imagines it as a great assembly where the evil at work in the world is revealed, unmasked, in order to destroy it. It is the task that the disciples must live by letting themselves be led by the Spirit. One needs to consume one's eyes in scrutinising the world and history in the light of the Scriptures with the help of the Spirit in order to detect the evil at work in the world and defeat it, and to undertake the ways of love that save the world. This is the grave and fascinating task that Christians still have today: to be prophets who unmask evil and who first and foremost show the way to goodness by their example. One of them, Archbishop Oscar Romero, still speaks today. He read the dramatic history of his time in the light of the Word of God. Certainly, it cost him martyrdom, but his testimony is still as precious as ever today. In the face of the accusations made against him, he replied that all he was doing was reading history in the light of the Gospel: "The word is like the ray of sunshine that comes from above and illuminates. What fault does the sun have when its pure light meets puddles, excrement, rubbish on this earth? It must illuminate these things, otherwise it would not be sun, it would not be light, it would not highlight the ugly, the horrible that exists on earth."
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!
