Reflection
Light and Salt
As we begin of our yearly reading of the Gospel of Matthew, and also start the Books of Kings, we might remember the often quoted words of the poet T.S. Eliot, “The end of our exploring will be to arrive where we started and to know the place for the first time.” So true of the liturgy. No matter where we begin, there is no straight line to an ending, but circling, we find ourselves where we began, now in a deeper place.
Two Sundays ago, we celebrated Pentecost, a feast of endings and beginnings. We ended our 50 days of celebration of the Paschal Mystery with the Risen One among us. Gifted with the Holy Spirit, we have set off, commissioned to go into the harvest, the abundant harvest that awaits us.
In the great circle of the liturgy, as we set out as followers of Jesus in our world, we have the exciting stories of the boundless energy and success of the prophets Elijah and Elisha. Their worries and questions lead them to intimacy with God in prayer, and with God they are invincible. We will have a passing glance of Israel’s trauma of exile with Assyria or Babylon. May we find comfort that in the worst of times God does not forget the chosen people, nor are we alone or forgotten in the worst of times.
In our familiar Beatitudes, we see the vocation of Israel to be the light of the nations. We embrace that light in Christ. We are banquet people who know good food, a banquet on the Holy Mountain.
We are invited to transform the world by throwing light where there is shadow and sharing the nourishment that Christ gives.
Today we celebrate the feast of a Doctor of the Church, the deacon Ephrem. Born in 306 in Nisibis. As an adult, he lived the lifestyle of a hermit. In the 350’s, he fled from his native Nisibis to Edessa (Turkey) when it was conquered by the Persians. There, he was ordained a deacon. He was a teacher who defended the faith through his biblical commentaries, poetry and most famously his hymns. Ephrem found the use of symbols most important and saw them in the Scriptures and in creation all around him, ‘Jesus created so many symbols that I have fallen into them as into the sea’. He has many titles: The Column of the Church, The Harp of the Holy Spirit, and is the greatest hymnographer of the Church of the East.
May the words of Ephrem bless us and fill us with music as we celebrate the liturgy and turn the pages of Scripture. ‘Adam lost the robe of glory that had clothed him in Paradise, but He who descended, put Adam on like a robe and ascended…. Blessed be the Newborn who… made humanity young again…. Blessed be the fruit who bowed Himself down for our hunger. Blessed be the Gracious One who … enriched all our poverty and filled our need.’
