Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I am the good shepherd,
my sheep listen to my voice,
and they become
one flock and one fold.
.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Sirach 5,1-8
Do not put your confidence in your money or say, 'With this I am self-sufficient.' Do not be led by your appetites and energy to follow the passions of your heart. And do not say, 'Who has authority over me?' for the Lord will certainly give you your deserts. Do not say, 'I have sinned, but what harm has befallen me?' for the Lord's forbearance is long. Do not be so sure of forgiveness that you add sin to sin. And do not say, 'His compassion is great, he will forgive me my many sins'; for with him are both mercy and retribution, and his anger does not pass from sinners. Do not delay your return to the Lord, do not put it off day after day; for suddenly the Lord's wrath will blaze out, and on the day of punishment you will be utterly destroyed. Do not set your heart on ill-gotten gains, they will be of no use to you on the day of disaster.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
There is a series of negative commands in this passage. It is one of the common ways, especially in the wisdom books, that the Word of God wants to guide the reader. Also, the commandments that we find in the legislative parts of the Pentateuch are sometimes similar. The passage opens with an invitation repeated a bit later, concerning wealth: "Do not rely on your wealth." In verse 8 it becomes, "Do not depend on dishonest wealth." The Bible often warns us about relying on wealth. Jesus himself warns his disciples about it, saying in the Beatitudes, "Woe to you who are rich" (Lk 6:24). Trust in wealth is closely linked to pride ("I am sufficient for myself"), which makes us live with a sense of security, arrogance, as if we were masters of everything: "Do not say, 'Who can have power over me?'" The reference is to the occasions in which we consider sin to be something normal, with no weight or consequence: "Do not say, 'I sinned, yet what has happened to me?'" Even God's forgiveness is taken for granted, a kind of free pass that does not ask for anything. Sometimes we become habituated to sin, habituated to repeating ourselves and the idea that "what can ever come of it?" But Sirach instead exhorts: "Do not delay to turn back to the Lord, and do not postpone it from day to day." Putting off conversion is a deceptive choice, but unfortunately it is easy to repeat that there is always time for it. When the Word of God calls us, we must not put it off. We gravely hurt ourselves renouncing to the Lord is offering us the possibility of transfiguring our lives.
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
