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Yesterday, Dan P., a man preparing for the diaconate here in our diocese of Tulsa, wrote me asking if I might help him learn more about Saint Ephrem the Syrian, Deacon and Doctor of the Church (309-373). Dan, I recommend that you purchase The Doctors of the Church, Thirty-Three Men and Women Who Shaped Christianity, by Bernard McGinn. In that book, not only will you find an excellent introduction to Saint Ephrem's life and works, but also a presentation of the thirty-two other Doctors of the Church.

The Collect for today's feast of Saint Ephrem is noteworthy. Here it is in my own translation from the original Latin

Graciously pour forth into our hearts, O Lord,
the Holy Spirit, by whose breath
Thy deacon, Saint Ephrem,
rejoiced to proclaim Thy mysteries in song,
and by Whose power he served Thee alone
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son,
who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, forever and ever.

A few years ago, for the feast of Saint Ephrem, in the place of a homily, I offered a commentary on some of his sayings. Dan and other readers may want to ponder these teachings today:

Saint Ephrem the Syrian on Prayer

Not to sin is truly blessed; but those who sin should not despair, but grieve over the sins they have committed, so that, through grief they may again attain blessedness.

It is good, then, to pray always and not to lose heart, as the Lord says, and again the Apostle says, 'Pray without ceasing', that is by night and by day and at every hour, and not only when coming into the church, and not bothering at other times. But whether you are working, lying down to sleep, travelling, eating, drinking, sitting at table, do not interrupt your prayer, for you do not know when he who demands your soul is coming. Don't wait for Sunday or a feast day, or a different place, but, as the Prophet David says, 'in every place of his dominion'.

Whether you are in church, or in your house, or in the country; whether you are guarding sheep, or constructing buildings, or present at drinking parties, do not stop praying.

When you are able, bend your knees, when you cannot, make intercession in your mind, 'at evening and at morning and at midday'.

If prayer precedes your work and if, when you rise from your bed, your first movements are accompanied by prayer, sin can find no entrance to attack your soul.

Prayer is a guard of prudence, control of wrath, restraint of pride, cleansing of malice, destruction of envy, righting of impiety.

Prayer is strength of bodies, prosperity of a household, good order of a city, might of a kingdom, trophy of war, assurance of peace.

Prayer is a seal of virginity, fidelity in marriage, weapon of travelers, guardian of sleepers, courage of the wakeful, abundance for farmers, safety of those who sail.

Prayer is an advocate for those being judged, remission for the bound, consolation for the grieving, gladness for the joyful, comfort for mourners, a feast on birthdays, a crown for the married, a shroud for the dying.

Prayer is converse with God, equal honour with the Angels, progress in good things, averting of evils, righting of sinners.

Prayer made the whale a house for Jonas, brought Ezechias back to life from the gates of death, turned the flame to wind of moisture for the Youths in Babylon. Through prayer Elias bound the heaven not to rain for three years and six months.

See, brethren, what strength prayer has. There is no possession more precious than prayer in the whole of human life. Never be parted from it; never abandon it.

Saint Ephrem the Syrian on Psalmody

Let psalmody be continually on your mouth, for when God is being named he puts the demons to flight and sanctifies the singer.

Psalmody is calm of soul, author of peace.

Psalmody is convenor of friendship, union of the separated, reconciliation of enemies.

Psalmody attracts the help of the Angels, is a weapon in night-time fears, repose of the day's toils, safety for infants, adornment for the old, consolation for the elderly, most fitting embellishment for women. It make deserts into homes, market places sober.

Psalmody is the ABC for beginners, progress for the more advanced, confirmation for the perfect, the voice of the Church. It makes festivals radiant; it creates mourning that is in accordance with God, for psalmody draws tears even from a heart of stone.

Psalmody is the work of the Angels, the commonwealth of heaven, spiritual incense. Psalmody is enlightenment of souls, sanctification of bodies.

Let us, brethren, never stop making psalmody our meditation, both at home and on the road, both sleeping and waking, speaking to ourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

Psalmody is the joy of those who love God. It banishes idle chatter, brings laughter to an end, reminds us of the judgement, rouses the soul towards God, joins the choir of the Angels.

Where there is psalmody with compunction, there God is, with the Angels.
Where the songs of the opponent are, there is God's wrath, and 'woe!' is the reward of laughter.

Where sacred books and readings are, there are the joy of the just and the salvation of the listeners. Where there are harps and dances, there is the darkening of men and women, and a festival of the Devil.

Saint Ephrem the Syriam on Poverty and Hospitality

Be thou a lover of poverty, and be desirous of neediness. If thou hast them both for thy portion, thou art an inheritor on high.

Despise not the voice of the poor and give him not cause to curse thee. For if he curse whose palate is bitter, the Lord will hear his petition.

If his garments are foul, wash them in water, which freely is bought.

Has a poor man entered into thy house? God has entered into thy house; God dwells within thy abode. He, whom thou hast refreshed from his troubles, from troubles will deliver thee.

Hast thou washed the feet of the stranger? Thou hast washed away the filth of thy sins. Hast thou prepared a table before him? Behold God eating [at it], and Christ likewise drinking [at it], and the Holy Spirit resting [on it]: Is the poor satisfied at thy table and refreshed? Thou hast satisfied Christ thy Lord. He is ready to be thy rewarder; in presence of angels and men He will confess thou hast fed His hunger; He will give thanks unto thee that thou didst give Him drink, and quench His thirst.

Saint Ephrem the Syrian Proposes a Rule of Life

Have thou also a law, a comely law for thy household. Establish an order that is wise, that the abjects laugh not at time.

Be careful in all thy doings, that thou be not a sport for fools; be upright and prudent, and both simple and wise.

Let thy body be quiet and cheerful, thy greeting seemly and simple; thy discourse without fault, thy speech brief and savoury; thy words few and sound, full of savour and understanding.

Speak not overmuch, not even words that are wise; for all things that are over many, though they be wise are wearisome.

To them of thy household be as a father. Amongst thy brethren esteem thyself least, and inferior amongst thy fellows, and of little account with all men.

With thy friend keep a secret; to those that love thee be true.

See that there be no wrangling; the secrets of thy friends reveal not, lest all that hear thee hate thee and esteem thee a mischiefmaker.

With those that hate thee wrangle not, neither face to face nor yet in thy heart.

No enemy shalt thou have but Satan his very self.

Give counsel to the wife thou hast wedded; give heed to her doings; as stronger thou art answerable that thou shouldst sustain her weakness. For weak is womankind, and very ready to fall.

Be thou as a hawk, when kindled (to anger), but when wrath departs from thee, be gladsome and also firm, in the blending of diverse qualities.

Keep silence among the aged; to the elders give due honour.

Honour the priests with diligence, as good stewards of the household. Give due honour to their degree, and search not out their doings. In his degree the priest is an angel, but in his doings a man. By mercy he is made a mediator, between God and mankind.

Search not out the faults of men; reveal not the sin of thy fellow; the shortcomings of thy neighbours, in speech of the mouth repeat not.

Thou art not judge in creation, thou hast not dominion over the earth. If thou lovest righteousness, reprove thy soul and thyself. Be thou judge unto thine own sins, and chastener of thy own transgressions.

Make thou not inquiry maliciously, into the misdeeds of men. For if thou doest this, injuries will not be lacking to thee.

Trust not the hearing of the ear, for many are the deceivers. Vain reports believe thou not, for false rumours are not few.

Saint Augustine preached this morning at the Third Nocturn of Vigils. Amazing. It makes one want to applaud! Does anyone preach like this today? Read the Latin text aloud. Listen to the musicality of it, to the rhythm and rhyming of it.

Agnovit infantem senex,
factus est in puero puer.

Simeon senex ferebat Christum infantem;
Christus regebat Simeonis senectutem.

The old man recognized the infant,
and in the boy became a boy.

He who was full of fatherly tenderness
was made young again in his old age.

Simeon the old man carried the infant Christ;
Christ guided the old age of Simeon.

Sermon 128, 2-4: PL 39

My confessor said something to me today that reminded me of a prayer that impressed me back in the days of my monastic youth, and still does: The Act of Love of Father Jean-Baptiste Muard (1809-1854), founder of the Society of Saint Edmund and of the Benedictine Abbey of La-Pierre-Qui-Vire. Thirty-seven years ago, if I am not mistaken, my excellent Novice Master told me that he said this prayer every day after Holy Communion. It is extraordinary the way certain things lodge themselves in one's memory.

Desiring to love Thee, my God, as much as is possible to a feeble creature,
I desire that all my thoughts, all my wishes, all my sentiments,
all my aspirations, all the pulsations of my heart,
all my movements, be so many acts of love.

I desire that every character I trace in writing,
every word, every letter, I read be to me so many acts of love.

Would that I could offer Thee each day as many acts of most fervent love
as there are grains of sand on the sea-shore,
leaves on the trees of the forest,
atoms in the air, and created things, and multiply them to infinity.

I offer Thee, my God, in compensation for my weakness,
all the acts of love of all the angels and all the saints in heaven and earth;
all the acts of love. of the most holy Virgin and, above all,
the acts of love for Thee of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Alas ! my God, that I cannot love Thee as Thou deservest to be loved;
give me, then, the heart of a Seraph or, rather,
fill my heart with the love of all the Seraphim,
the love of all the Saints, the love of all hearts,
and increase it ever more and more
that I may love Thee as much as I desire to love Thee. Amen.

I rejoice to celebrate the Votive Office and Mass of the Most Blessed Sacrament on Thursday whenever the rubrics permit it. At Matins I read Saint Ambrose (De Sacramentis 4:4); he is astonishing in his simplicity and clarity. How I love this text!

And yes, dear readers, that is a beehive resting on the book next to Saint Ambrose! So gifted was he at extracting spiritual honey from the Scriptures, and so sweet was his preaching to the palate of souls, that, in his iconography, he came to be depicted with bees and beehives.

The same symbolism is associated with Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the Doctor Mellifluus (Honey-flowing Doctor) and "the last of the Fathers."

"Ergo non otiose, cum accipis,
tu dicis: Amen;
jam in spiritu confitens,
quod accipias corpus Christi.
Dicit tibi sacerdos: Corpus Christi:
et tu dicis: Amen.
Hoc est, verum.
Quod confitetur lingua,
teneat affectus."

"Therefore it is not idly that,
when thou art a-receiving, thou sayest: "Amen";
testifying in thine heart that
That which thou art taking is the Body of Christ.
The priest saith unto thee: "The Body of Christ!" and thou answerest: "Amen"
That is to say: "It is true." What then thy tongue confesseth, let thine heart hold to."

My new life here in Tulsa began one month ago on the feast of Our Lady of Knock, Thursday, August 21st. My days are full -- from Matins until Compline -- and they pass quickly. There is much that I would want to share with the readers of Vultus Christi. Today, while reading one of my favourite spiritual authors, Dom Eugène Vandeur, O.S.B., I came upon his meditation on the words of the Pater, "Thy Kingdom come." Here is part of it:

Thy Kingdom come!
Come, Lord Jesus, King of kings and Lord of lords (Ap 19, 16);
make Thy solemn entrance today into my heart:
reign Thou in my innermost being.
Is not that Thy true kingdom (Lk 17, 21)?
And then act upon all my forces,
the forces of my soul, of my mind, of my heart,
upon the energies of my body;
reign Thou absolutely;
I give over to Thee straightway all the powers and possessions of my being;
do Thou but reign over me and all that belongs to me.

Yet what have I, Lord, but my nothingness, my weakness,
the sad results of my sins?
Nevertheless, reign even over all that,
in order that I may pass into Thee,
in order that Thou, once more, with great desire,
mayest eat Thy Pasch with me (Lk 22, 15).

Then shall I pass and enter into sincere, lasting, and sweet communion with Thee
in Thy functions as Priest, Victim, and Altar of Thy Sacrifice.
then wilt Thou take possession of my being;
Thou wilt offer it in truth, in untold plenitude to my Father Who is in heaven.

Yes, my soul will be filled with Thee, Lord Jesus.
Made the city of Thy reign,
it will have from that time forth but one passion,
a passion essential to Thy saints:
namely, to extend the reign of my Heavenly Father,
this reign which is Thy very Self, O my Christ!
I shall burn with the desire to make Thee known and loved;
to lead all souls, sinners especially, to Thy sacred feet,
that there they may be bound fast with faith and love
and, casting themselves into Thine arms,
may still their longing, even as I,
at the wound of love where Thou refreshest all who thirst
for the Life eternal which Thou art.

O Father, may Thy kingdom come!
May the reign of Jesus Christ begin!
For He must reign.
Opportet autem Illum regnare (1 Cor 15,5).

"Whatever did not fit in with my plan
did lie within the plan of God.
I have an ever deeper and firmer belief
that nothing is merely an accident
when seen in the light of God,
that my whole life down to the smallest details
has been marked out for me
in the plan of Divine Providence
and has a completely coherent meaning
in God's all seeing eyes.

To be a child of God,
that means to be led by the Hand of God,
to do the Will of God, not one's own will,
to place every care and every Hope in the Hand of God
and not to worry about one's future.
On this rests the freedom and the joy of the child of God.
But how few of even the truly pious,
even of those ready for heroic sacrifices, possess this freedom.

When night comes, and you look back over the day
and see how fragmentary everything has been,
and how much you planned that has gone undone,
and all the reasons you have to be embarrassed and ashamed:
just take everything exactly as it is,
put it in God's hands and leave it with Him.
Then you will be able to rest in Him --really rest --
and start the next day as a new life."

Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, O.C.D.
October 12, 1891 -- August 9, 1942

A Centenary

The Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity began today . . . for the one hundreth time. Episcopal Father Paul James Wattson, the founder of the Society of the Atonement, initiated the observance in 1908. In a letter to another Anglican clergyman, The Reverend Spencer Jones, Father Paul proposed dedicating eight days to a fervent prayer of intercession for unity; the Octave opened on the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter at Rome, January 18th, and ended on the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, January 25th.

Already in 1908, over 2000 persons joined their prayer to that of Father Paul and his collaborator, Mother Lurana Mary White. Writing of the experience in his periodical, The Lamp, Father Paul expressed a wish that, "this Church Unity observance so auspiciously begun, may be kept with increasing numbers year after year until Our Lord's prayer, Ut omnes unum sint is completely fulfilled."

In October 1909, Monsignor Joseph Conroy of Ogdensburg, New York, received "The Society of the Atonement" — Father Paul, Mother Lurana, and a few companions — into the Catholic Church.

Father George Ignatius Spencer

Father Paul's Octave for Church Unity was not an isolated initiative. The Holy Ghost had already moved other souls to offer a similar prayer for unity. In 1839, Father Ignatius Spencer, a convert from the Church of England, launched a crusade of prayer on the First Thursday of every month for the conversion of England. Father Ignatius' crusade was grounded in the meditation of the Priestly Prayer of Christ in the seventeenth chapter of Saint John's Gospel. He has been called the "Apostle of Ecumenical Prayer." In 1847 Father Spencer entered the Congregation of the Passion, becoming Father Ignatius of Saint Paul.

The Abbé Couturier

January 1933 saw the French priest Paul Couturier extend the scope of the Octave for Church Unity to include those who, without focusing on a visible reunion with the Church of Rome under the Successor of Saint Peter, desired nonetheless to participate in an effort of spiritual ecumenism. He proposed a week of prayer that would express the adhesion of all Christians to the prayer of Christ, "that all may be one" (Jn 17:21). In 1934, the Abbé Couturier's vision merged with that of Father Ignatius Spencer, Father Paul Watson, and Mother Lurana White to become the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in its present form.

Blessed Maria Gabriella dell'Unità

The Abbé Couturier communicated his zeal for Christian Unity in his personal correspondence with Mother Maria Pia, Abbess of the Monastery of Grottaferrata in Italy. In 1938, Mother Maria Pia shared with her community a letter she had received from the Abbé Couturier. He wrote of Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox Christians who had made the offering of their lives for the unity of the Church. Mother Maria Gabriella, a young nun, recently professed, received an inner calling to make the same gesture. Our Lord accepted her offering. Maria Gabriella died on April 23, 1939. It was Good Shepherd Sunday. After her death, her Sisters discovered that her worn New Testament opened by itself to the seventeenth chapter of Saint John. The pages of Jesus' Priestly Prayer to the Father, so often turned by her feverish fingers, were almost transparent. Pope John Paul II beatified Mother Maria Gabriella on January 25, 1983, the last day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

For my part, I remain attached to Father Paul's original vision for the Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity, and prefer the prayers that he proposed a century ago.

Didyme wrote this prayer. I took the liberty of translating it from the French. It is every sinner's psalm. The last two lines are extraordinary.

Lord, thou knowest this heart of mine.
Thou knowest the clashings that at sundry hours rage therein.
Thou knowest my contradictions,
pulled this way and that, I am torn within my breast.
Thou knowest the things that give me life
and the things that wound me unto death,
all that is my joy and all that that is my sorrow Thou knowest,
the strength that is mine,
and the weariness that on certain days is more than I can bear.

Lord, thou knowest my life.
Thou knowest its heights and its depths,
the welling up of loves and the loathings that follow,
fidelity and infidelity,
seasons of flourishing and seasons of crisis,
my brightnesses and my darker moments.

All this, O Lord,
and all that is this life of mine Thou knowest,
thou who searchest the heart and its secret places.

But above all this,
Thou art the Son of Man who one day didst take Thy rest beside the well,
weak Thou wast, and worn, and thirsty,
in the garden held fast in the grip of fear,
and on the tree forsaken.

Come thou, my peace.
Come thou, my sweetness.
Come thou, my consolation.
Come thou my pardon and my love.

Come, rebuild the brokenness within.
Come, redress my fragile shelter.
Come, restore my hope.
Be thou to me one little flame in so vast a night.
And wait for me at the end of these my twisting paths,
for it is Thee that I love and none other.

"And he took a child, and put him in the midst of them" (Mark 9:36).

We have depicted Jesus as Child and as King
in order to attract souls to Him more easily
and to give them confident trust and hope.
We also wanted to recall that it is by His Divine Heart,
full of mercy and of love for humanity
that we shall obtain peace in the world.
(Mother Yvonne–Aimée)

Today's Gospel is, in some way, an invitation to make known the Little Invocation that has changed so many lives, healed so many hearts, and set so many souls in the way of ceaseless prayer. Some time ago, a certain monk who had tried for many years to practice the ceaseless prayer of the heart came upon a biography of Mother Yvonne–Aimée (1901–1951), and learned of the prayer, "O Jesus, King of Love, I put my trust in thy merciful goodness." One day, kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, he realized that the prayer was repeating itself ceaselessly and effortlessly in his heart. He found himself praying the Little Invocation at every waking moment and even during the night, in a way similar to the "Jesus Prayer" of monks of the Eastern Church. Over the years, the grace of ceaseless prayer by means of the Little Invocation has not abated. It is always there: a gentle murmur of confidence bubbling up from the depths of the heart.

Individuals from all walks of life, having received the Little Invocation as a penance in Confession, attest to the graces received: graces of inner healing, of victory over persistent and deeply rooted habits of sin, of trust in the mercy of Christ, and of a ceaseless prayer of the heart.

That is exactly what His Holiness, Pope Leo XIII did on June 11, 1899 in his Act of Consecration of the Human Race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He called this "the great act" of his pontificate.

The Holy Father presented his intentions to the Catholic world in the encyclical Annum Sacrum on May 25, 1899:

"But shall We allow to slip from Our remembrance those innumerable others upon whom the light of Christian truth has not yet shined? We hold the place of Him who came to save that which was lost, and who shed His blood for the salvation of the whole human race. And so We greatly desire to bring to the true life those who sit in the shadow of death. As we have already sent messengers of Christ over the earth to instruct them, so now, in pity for their lot with all Our soul we commend them, and as far as in us lies We consecrate them to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In this way this act of devotion, which We recommend, will be a blessing to all."

Then, on June 11, 1899, in communion with the bishops of the world, he prayed:

Most sweet Jesus, Redeemer of the human race . . . Be Thou King of all those who are still involved in the darkness of idolatry and Islamism, and refuse not to draw them all into the light and kingdom of God.