Memorial of Martha, Mary and Lazarus from Bethany, friends of Jesus. Prayer for all those who are gravely ill and dying. Remembrance of the people sick with AIDS. Read more
Memorial of Martha, Mary and Lazarus from Bethany, friends of Jesus. Prayer for all those who are gravely ill and dying. Remembrance of the people sick with AIDS.
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
John 11,19-27
and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming she went to meet him. Mary remained sitting in the house. Martha said to Jesus, 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died, but even now I know that God will grant whatever you ask of him.' Jesus said to her, 'Your brother will rise again.' Martha said, 'I know he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day.' Jesus said: I am the resurrection. Anyone who believes in me, even though that person dies, will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? 'Yes, Lord,' she said, 'I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into this world.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Look down, O Lord, on your servants.
Be it unto us according to your word.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Today the Church remembers Martha, Mary and their brother Lazarus. It is family of fiends of Jeus whose names we see often in the Gospels. By welcoming Jesus in their home, they become a model for us. he Gospel of John recounts a dramatic moment in the life of this family: Lazarus, seriously ill, dies, and Jesus decides to go to Bethany with his disciples. Martha goes to meet Jesus and receives him, while Mary sits at home. "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." says Martha. It sounds like a rebuke, but it is already a testimony of faith as she recognizes that Jesus' presence is life-giving. These words of Lazarus' sister put us beside the waiting of so many sick, so many elderly and so many women and men abandoned and left alone without any care. Martha's prayer reminds us that Jesus is never actually far from the lives of those who suffer. He, like his friend Lazarus, makes himself close to those who are in sickness and calls us to follow him. Each disciple must cultivate human feelings in his or her heart that help build a society of solidarity, fraternity and therefore humanity. This requires conversion of heart, that is, the maturation of the same feelings that Jesus had for Lazarus. Jesus was moved by the death of his friend, to the point of tears, and he asked to be led to his tomb. To Martha he said: "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" This is the question he asks everyone to kindle a light of hope. And Martha answers: "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world." Let us make Martha's profession of faith our own.
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
