FINISHED
PALINSESTO
Reading of the Word of God
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
I am the good shepherd,
my sheep listen to my voice,
and they become
one flock and one fold.
.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Esther 4,17i.17k.17l.17s
And all Israel cried out with all their might, since death was staring them in the face. Queen Esther also took refuge with the Lord in the mortal peril which had overtaken her. She took off her sumptuous robes and put on sorrowful mourning. Instead of expensive perfumes, she covered her head with ashes and dung. She mortified her body severely, and the former scenes of her happiness and elegance were now littered with tresses torn from her hair. She besought the Lord God of Israel in these words: My Lord, our King, the Only One, come to my help, for I am alone and have no helper but you and am about to take my life in my hands. Put persuasive words into my mouth when I face the lion; change his feeling into hatred for our enemy, so that he may meet his end, and all those like him!
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.
Praise to you, o Lord, King of eternal glory
Mordecai's prayer is a profession of faith and resistance to evil. Esther's prayer is richer and more personal. When faced with an enemy, believers not only ask to be freed from him, but they also show awareness of their sin: "We have sinned." The presence of an enemy is interpreted by the people of Isarel as a correction, a call to return to a more steadfast faith that they had neglected as they were anxiously seeking their wellbeing. Esther sought "refuge with the Lord, gripped by mortal anguish." Hence her prayer: she prostrated herself on the ground with her handmaidens from morning till evening. Mindful of the history of the covenant - through listening to the books of the ancestors - she invoked God's protection on herself and on all the people, alternating the singular and the plural. She detached herself from the people when she considered it her specific task to present herself to the king, a mission for which she felt loneliness, weakness and anguish; at the same time, she identified herself with the people, becoming their spokesperson, when it comes to pleading with the Lord to be delivered from their enemies for the very glory of the Lord and the defence of his inheritance. She presented herself to the Lord as a queen in spite of herself, not sharing in the benefits of her role, as if this makes her a more suitable instrument and disposes her to rely only on the Lord: "My Lord, our king, you are the only one! Come to the aid of me who am alone and have no other help but you." Esther stands before us all as a believer who feels the responsibility not to save herself but all the people.
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
