The Catholic community of Sant’Edigio takes a unique, communal approach to weekly prayer
By Lora Moftah
The pulpit and the altar are empty as the call echoes from within the pews: “Blessed be the name
of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!” The invocation, piercing the silence of the near-
empty church, is followed immediately by a small but spirited chorus of amens.
It is Friday night and 12 Catholics are gathered for what, at first glance, might appear to be an
informal prayer service. Only three pews at the very front of the church are occupied. There is no
priest present.
A man seated in the first row, on the right-most end of the pew, is leading the prayer– until he
isn’t. As soon as the amens have reverberated through the nave, a different man, seated to the left
of the first man, begins leading the group in song. “O, God, come to our assistance!”
The group responds in harmony, “O, Lord, make haste to help us!”
Next, a man seated to the left of the second man begins singing the first two lines of a psalm,
with the group echoing the next two lines. As the service continues, these three men continue
alternating in the role of invocator, taking it in turns to lead the gathering in prayer.
“Turn your ear, O Lord, and give answer, for I am poor and needy.”
The prayer has a monastic quality to it, calling to mind monks at vespers. However, those
gathered are not monks but regular Catholics of all walks of life: young, old, male, female, black,
white and Latino. They are members of the Community of Sant’Egidio, a Catholic lay
organization dedicated to prayer, ecumenicalism and service to the poor.
Their turn-taking style of leading prayer, led from within the pews rather than in front of them, is
characteristic of the group’s participatory, communal tradition. It is no coincidence that members
of Sant’Egidio simply refer to their group as “the community.”
Sant’Egidio was founded in 1968 by a group of young Italians dedicated to the power of prayer
and of helping those in need, particularly the impoverished, the imprisoned and the infirm. The
group, which is officially recognized by the Vatican as a Catholic lay organization, has seen its
numbers grow around the world in the decades since its founding.
Estimates of its membership range from 40,000 to 70,000 people worldwide. The imprecision
around Sant’Egidio’s numbers points to the group’s laissez-faire approach to tallying its
members; there is no formal membership process and members of the community do not pay
dues. The sense of community is, instead, developed through group prayer and public service,
including weekly outreach to people who are homeless as well as elderly nursing home residents.
In New York, members of the community gather to pray together every Friday evening at Little
Italy’s Most Precious Blood Church on Mulberry Street. Many of those gathered have just come
from work and are dressed accordingly. A small stack of prayer books is set up on a box in the
center aisle but some members walk right by the box without picking up a copy. Instead, they sit
down and look on with neighbors in the pews.
The community devotes its Friday gathering to what is known as the Prayer for the Poor, one of
the most important prayers in the Sant’Egidio prayer book.
For longtime members like Paola Piscitelli, the prayer’s structure, particularly its openness to
broader participation, is an essential part of the community’s spirit. She points to the alternation
of the prayer leader as an example of the group’s emphasis on community and camaraderie.
How significant is this ritual for members of Sant’Egidio? For Piscitelli, the question of ritual is
almost beside the point. She argues that even the concept of a ritual is an amorphous one in
Sant’Egidio, which is a lot less focused on the ritualism of prayer than its spirit and power within
groups.
Alternating prayer leaders is not a practice that is even necessarily set in stone for the
community. The number of prayer leaders really depends on how many people are present at the
service and their level of willingness or ability to participate. Tonight’s turnout, with just a dozen
members in the pews, is “great,” according to Piscitelli, who says the group’s core membership
in New York numbers around 25 in total.
While Sant’Egidio’s prayer service allows for openness to broad participation, the prayer itself is
nonetheless tightly structured, moving from the Invitatory to the Psalmody, to the reading of the
Word of God. The combination of this openness with an established structure is an important
feature of the prayer service for Piscitelli. “It’s about community,” she says. “But it’s also that
you’re entering into something separate from the world.”