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
Luke 19,45-48
Then he went into the Temple and began driving out those who were busy trading, saying to them, 'According to scripture, my house shall be a house of prayer but you have turned it into a bandits' den.' He taught in the Temple every day. The chief priests and the scribes, in company with the leading citizens, tried to do away with him, but they could not find a way to carry this out because the whole people hung on his words.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Jesus entered the holy city and set out towards the Temple. Within those walls was the heart of Jerusalem, the place of God's presence, where the faith and history of Isarel found their fulfilment. But the spirit of the world, with its love for personal gain and wealth had invaded even that space dedicated to God and prayer. Truly that house had been transformed into a place of commerce, of business, of buying and selling. We could say that the temple had become the emblem of the condition of the world: a place which it too was a slave to materialism, of a life understood as a market, as an exchange of goods. For many, even today, what counts in life is to buy and sell, acquire and consume. Nothing else. The dimension of gratuitousness seems to have disappeared, even more be banished, from life, The law of the market has become the new religion, with its temples, its rites, its altars upon which to sacrifice everything. Jesus, angry before that not only scandalous but petty spectacle drives out the sellers crying out: "My house shall be a house of prayer." The only true relationship, the only one which has full citizenship in life, is the gratuitous love for God and for one's brothers and sisters which becomes a space for the real presence of God in every city. Space for God is made in the heart. Jesus expelled the sellers from the temple and also expels that materialistic spirit so robustly present in our hearts. And he proclaims the Gospel to us again. The evangelist writes that from that moment Jesus remained in the Temple and began to proclaim the Gospel every day. That place - and we hope it is like that also for our heart-becomes once again the sanctuary of mercy and love.
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!
