Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord on Mount Tabor.
We remember Hiroshima in Japan, where the first atomic bomb was dropped in 1945.
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Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord on Mount Tabor.
We remember Hiroshima in Japan, where the first atomic bomb was dropped in 1945.
Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a people acquired by God
to proclaim his marvellous works.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Daniel 7,9-10.13-14
While I was watching, thrones were set in place and one most venerable took his seat. His robe was white as snow, the hair of his head as pure as wool. His throne was a blaze of flames, its wheels were a burning fire. A stream of fire poured out, issuing from his presence. A thousand thousand waited on him, ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was in session and the books lay open. I was gazing into the visions of the night, when I saw, coming on the clouds of heaven, as it were a son of man. He came to the One most venerable and was led into his presence. On him was conferred rule, honour and kingship, and all peoples, nations and languages became his servants. His rule is an everlasting rule which will never pass away, and his kingship will never come to an end.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
You will be holy,
because I am holy, thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The mountain of the Transfiguration, which later tradition identifies with Tabor, stands as the image of every spiritual journey. Jesus also calls us with him on the mountain, as he did with his three closest friends to live with him the experience of intimate communion with the Father. Some commentators suggest that the story tells of a spiritual experience that involved above all Jesus: a heavenly vision that produced a transfiguration in him. It is a hypothesis that allows us to grasp more deeply Jesus' spiritual life. Sometimes we forget that Jesus also had his spiritual journey, he too had to climb the mountain, as Abraham and Moses, Elijah did and as every believer must do. It is to say that Jesus too felt the need to "go up" to the Father, to meet with him after he had descended to dwell among us. It is true that the communion with the Father was his very being, his whole life, the bread of his days, the substance of its mission, the heart of all that he was and did; but he needed moments in which this intimate relationship emerged in its fullness. Certainly, the disciples needed it. The experience of Tabor was one of those singular moments of communion that the Gospel extends to all the historical events of the people of Israel, as evidenced by the presence of Moses and Elijah, who "were talking with Jesus." Jesus did not live this experience alone; he also involved his three closest friends. It was a moment among the most significant for Jesus' personal life, and it also became such for the three disciples and for all those who allow themselves to be involved in the same ascent. In the regular life with the Lord, in prayer and listening to the Scriptures we are always called to transfigure our life and the world around us.
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
