Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Job 38,1.12-21; 40,3-5
Then from the heart of the tempest Yahweh gave Job his answer. He said: Have you ever in your life given orders to the morning or sent the dawn to its post, to grasp the earth by its edges and shake the wicked out of it? She turns it as red as a clay seal, she tints it as though it were a dress, stealing the light from evil-doers and breaking the arm raised to strike. Have you been right down to the sources of the sea and walked about at the bottom of the Abyss? Have you been shown the gates of Death, have you seen the janitors of the Shadow dark as death? Have you an inkling of the extent of the earth? Tell me all about it if you have! Which is the way to the home of the Light, and where does darkness live?- You could then show them the way to their proper places, you could put them on the path home again! If you do know, you must have been born when they were, you must be very old by now! Job replied to Yahweh: My words have been frivolous: what can I reply? I had better lay my hand over my mouth. I have spoken once, I shall not speak again; I have spoken twice, I have nothing more to say.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
God finally speaks, as Job had been asking from the beginning of the book. But the answer appears strange. It seems that the Lord does not care at all about answering Job's questions and demands directly. God challenges the man who has dared to question his actions. These two chapters form a long question posed by God to Job, which is summarized in the initial challenge: "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge. Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me." And God asks Job about the works of creation, first nature and then animals. How can Job think that God is outside of human history if God is not only the source of all that exists, but also the one that keeps all the works of creation alive? Today science tries to explain everything and finds the origin of every event. Thus we end by eliminating any reason to be awestruck by creation. Why should we see God's benevolent presence behind the things we see every day? In the end, ancient cultures did not know the causes of many phenomena that we are now able to explain. They easily attributed the causes of the phenomena to divinities, to the point of making the phenomena themselves divine, as happened, for example, not only in ancient Greece or Rome, but also in many other cultures. And yet this is precisely the novelty of the Bible: it does not consider any created thing divine. In this it is profoundly "secular". But God's presence emerges over everything: God maintains the wondrous order of creation, something worthy of being amazed by, because we will never be masters of it all. We too need to let ourselves be questioned by the Lord, so that our wisdom will not become foolishness.
Doa merupakan jantung kehidupan Komunitas Sant'Egidio dan merupakan prioritas yang paling penting. Di penghujung hari, setiap Komunitas Sant'Egidio, besar maupun kecil, akan berkumpul di sekeliling Tuhan untuk mendengarkan sabda-Nya. Sesungguhnya Sabda Allah dan doa merupakan landasan seluruh kehidupan Komunitas. Para rasul tidak bisa tidak selain tetap di sekitar kaki Yesus, seperti yang dilakukan oleh Maria dari Bethani, untuk menerima kasih dan belajar cara-Nya (Fil. 2:5).
Sehingga setiap malam, ketika Komunitas kembali ke kaki Tuhan, Komunitas mengulangi kata-kata dari rasul tak bernama: "Tuhan ajarkanlah kami cara berdoa" Yesus, Sang Guru, terus menjawab: "Ketika kamu berdoa, katakanlah: Abba, Bapa". Hal itu bukanlah satu seruan sederhana. Dengan kata-kata ini, Yesus membiarkan para murid untuk berperan serta dalam hubungan mereka sendiri dengan Bapa. Oleh sebab itu, fakta bahwa sebagai anak-anak Bapa yang bertahta di surga, muncul sebelum kata-kata yang mungkin kita ucapkan. Jadi doa di atas segalanya merupakan cara untuk menjadi manusia. Ini untuk mengatakan bahwa kita anak-anak yang berpaling kepada Bapa dengan iman, dan yakin bahwa hal itu akan didengar.
Yesus mengajar kita memanggil Allah dengan sebutan "Bapa Kami" Tidak hanya "Bapa" atau "Bapaku" Para murid, meskipun mereka berdoa dengan cara mereka, tidak pernah terisolasi tidak juga menjadi yatim; mereka selalu menjadi anggota keluarga Tuhan.
Dalam doa bersama, di samping misteri anak Allah, ada juga misteri persaudaraan, seperti Bapa Gereja mengatakan: "Kamu tidak bisa memiliki Allah sebagai Bapa tanpa memiliki gereja sebagai ibu". Ketika berdoa bersama, Roh Kudus menyatukan para rasul di ruangan atas bersama dengan Maria, Bunda Allah, sehingga mereka dapat memusatkan pandangan mereka kepada wajah Tuhan dan belajar dari Dia rahasia hati-Nya.
Komunitas Sant'Egidio di seluruh dunia berkumpul bersama di berbagai tempat doa dan menghamparkan di hadapan Tuhan harapan dan penderitaan manusia yang lelah dan letih seperti yang di katakan oleh Injil (Mat. 9:37). Dalam kumpulan di masa lalu ini kita bisa melihat jumlah massa yang sangat besar di kota-kota modern ini, jutaan pengungsi yang terus melarikan diri dari negeri mereka, orang miskin yang terpinggirkan ke tepi kehidupan dan mereka yang menantikan seseorang yang akan merawat mereka. Berdoa bersama termasuk di dalamnya tangisan, seruan, permohonan, keinginan bagi damai, penyembuhan dan penebusan manusia di dunia ini. Doa tidak pernah sia-sia, doa terus menerus kepada Tuhan sehingga mengubah kecemasan menjadi harapan, air mata menjadi kegembiraan, putus asa menjadi kebahagiaan, dan kesepian menjadi persatuan. Semoga Kerajaan Allah hadir segera di antara manusia.
