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
Exodus 32,15-24.30-34
Moses turned and came down the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, tablets inscribed on both sides, inscribed on the front and on the back. The tablets were the work of God, and the writing on them was God's writing, engraved on the tablets. When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, 'There is the sound of battle in the camp!' But he replied: No song of victory is this sound, no lament for defeat this sound; but answering choruses I hear! And there, as he approached the camp, he saw the calf and the groups dancing. Moses blazed with anger. He threw down the tablets he was holding, shattering them at the foot of the mountain. He seized the calf they had made and burned it, grinding it into powder which he scattered on the water, and made the Israelites drink it. Moses then said to Aaron, 'What have these people done to you for you to have brought so great a sin on them?' Aaron replied, 'My lord should not be so angry. You yourself know what a bad state these people are in! They said to me, "Make us a god to go at our head; for that Moses, the man who brought us here from Egypt -- we do not know what has become of him." I then said to them, "Anyone with gold, strip it off!" They gave it to me. I threw it into the fire and out came this calf!' On the following day Moses said to the people, 'You have committed a great sin. But now I shall go up to Yahweh: perhaps I can secure expiation for your sin.' Moses then went back to Yahweh and said, 'Oh, this people has committed a great sin by making themselves a god of gold. And yet, if it pleased you to forgive their sin. . .! If not, please blot me out of the book you have written!' Yahweh said to Moses, 'Those who have sinned against me are the ones I shall blot out of my book. So now go and lead the people to the place I promised to you. My angel will indeed go at your head but, on the day of punishment, I shall punish them for their sin.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
God's indignation at Israel's sin is communicated to Moses. In this sense, the prophet participates in God's own feelings. How can he give the people the law of life he received on Mount Sinai if they do not listen anymore to the Lord who speaks, they shelter in an idol and seek security in it? Those tablets, words that were meant to remain engraved in the heart, shatter before the unbelief and hardness of heart of the Israelites. Moses does not compromise with the unbelief of his own. Moses finds an intercessor in Aaron, even if he had been part of Israel's betrayal. Aaron finds the words of repentance in acknowledging his sin, the insidious temptation to indulge fears, the search for security at any cost, practical unbelief. There is a solidarity in evil, which often also involves believers, and even a whole people, like Israel in the desert. The reasons of evil are so convincing that people are willing to pay gold to have an idol from which they feel secure. Idols steal the hearts and steal the confidence of men and women.
This is also why we always need a man like Moses and the Word of God to understand our complicity with evil. Indeed, solidarity arises in intercession and prayer, as Moses and Aaron show. Jesus himself exhorted to be united in prayer, assuring that it obtains what it asks for: "If two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them" (Mt 18:19-20).
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
