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
Genesis 19,15-29
When dawn broke the angels urged Lot on, 'To your feet! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city.' And as he hesitated, the men seized his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters -- Yahweh being merciful to him -- and led him out and left him outside the city. When they had brought him outside, he was told, 'Flee for your life. Do not look behind you or stop anywhere on the plain. Flee to the hills or you will be swept away.' 'Oh no, my lord!' Lot said to them, 'You have already been very good to your servant and shown me even greater love by saving my life, but I cannot flee to the hills, or disaster will overtake me and I shall die. That town over there is near enough to flee to, and is small. Let me flee there-after all it is only a small place -- and so survive.' He replied, 'I grant you this favour too, and will not overthrow the town you speak of. Hurry, flee to that one, for I cannot do anything until you reach it.' That is why the town is named Zoar. The sun rose over the horizon just as Lot was entering Zoar. Then Yahweh rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire of his own sending. He overthrew those cities and the whole plain, with all the people living in the cities and everything that grew there. But Lot's wife looked back, and was turned into a pillar of salt. Next morning, Abraham hurried to the place where he had stood before Yahweh, and looking towards Sodom and Gomorrah and the whole area of the plain, he saw the smoke rising from the ground like smoke from a furnace. Thus it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he did not forget Abraham and he rescued Lot from the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities where Lot was living.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
This passage shows us the dawn of the day of the destruction of Sodom. The angels exhort Lot to leave the city. Facing the drama that is hitting the city, Lot is as if paralyzed, he cannot even move so that they have to take him by the hand and together with his wife and the daughters they are led out to save him. As soon as Lot is safe, a fire and sulphur rain - maybe a real volcanic eruption - gets on Sodom and destroys it; thus, it becomes the symbol not only of the sinner but mostly corrupted city. We should reflect on the fact that one of the most serious sins done by the inhabitants of the city was the refusal to welcome the foreigners who had taken shelter by Lot. The hearts of those citizens were narrow and so bent on defending their own interests that they did not see in those strangers brothers in need of help and raged against Lot for what he had done. Truly their hearts were like stone, like those with which they had built the city walls as they wanted to defend themselves against their enemies. A city, a society, or a nation that chooses to build unsurmountable walls and keep the doors shut to those who want to enter, condemns itself to extinction and ruin. It is a message that should make people reflect even today, Borders, no matter if of the hearts or cities, always lead to a close and barren life.
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
