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
Luke 12,35-38
'See that you have your belts done up and your lamps lit. Be like people waiting for their master to return from the wedding feast, ready to open the door as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. In truth I tell you, he will do up his belt, sit them down at table and wait on them. It may be in the second watch that he comes, or in the third, but blessed are those servants if he finds them ready.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
In contrast to the unwise rich man who was surprised by death, Jesus talks of the disciple who waits for the Lord. Vigilance becomes one of the fundamental dimensions of Christian life. Those who stay focused on themselves and fall asleep on their own small yard are asked to turn their gaze upwards and wait for the Lord's return. Jesus says, "Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit." To be dressed for action, in the language of the time, meant to raise the tunic or the coat with a belt as they were too long for a sudden action that might request agility and quickness. Untie the belt instead meant to lay down and rest. The Israelites were dressed for action (girded loins) as they got ready the night before fleeing from Egypt (ex 12:11). Keeping the lamps lit meant the same thing: being ready for action even at night. Jesus asks the disciples to be ready the way it was just described. We know that waiting for meeting the Lord is the beatitude of the disciples, their topmost aspiration. The evangelist frames Jesus' affirmations in the eschatological horizon. But in Christian life, it is also true that the Lod comes every day at the door of our heart and knocks, as it is written in the book of Revelation (3:20). Blessed are those who open the door because they will receive the incredible reward of the encounter with Jesus himself. He will become their servant, will gird himself and invite them to sit at table, and will come and serve them. The roles have reversed. This seems completely unforeseeable, but this is precisely the paradoxical nature of the grace we receive. Jesus presents himself as the one who serves. Throughout the Last Supper, Jesus behaved literally like a servant: taking a basin, he tied a towel around his waist, bent and washed the feet of the disciples one by one including Judah. We understand better the sense of the beatitude that Jesus proclaims in this Gospel passage: to meet the Lord and enjoy his undeserved love of being served by him.
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!
For the sick, in memory of the dead, for peace
