St. Ephrem

ST. EPHREM
Doctor of the Church (†378)

Today we honor one of the great saints and Doctors of the Church, St. Ephrem the Syrian. He is also honored with the title: 'Doctor of the Church', in Latin and Greek. He was near the beginning of the 4th century, when the Arians began to take the churches out of the hands of believers, and teach that Jesus was NOT divine. He also was among the first to proclaim the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mother. From reading my limited resources, he sounded like someone you would want to be around, just to listen to him speak. Like Someone else we all know. I'm going to just put a couple of his sayings here, so you can know what I am talking about. In the first, he is paraphrasing Jesus when He gave Peter the keys to heaven. The second is here, mainly because he is talking about the Holy Eucharist. Since we have had recently the Feast day of Corpus Christi, I thought it appropriate.

With his energy and his remarkable doctrinal precision, he states(in the Person of Jesus):

"I have established you, Simon my disciple, as the foundation of holy Church. Formerly I called you Peter because you upheld my building, you are the overseer of those who construct the Church upon earth. If they wish to build that which is evil, you, who are the foundation, will prevent them. You are at the source of my doctrine, you are the chief of my disciples, it is through you that I will quench the thirst of all nations, the quickening sweetness that I give belongs to you, I have chosen you as the first-fruits of my disciples to be the inheritor of my treasures. I have given you the keys of my kingdom; I have given all my treasures into your power."

It is interesting to receive such testimony from the mouth of him whom all the Eastern Christians reverence as their greatest Doctor and consider their special glory. But few of the Fathers of the first centuries of Christianity have spoken so explicitly on the subject of the Holy Eucharist as the Deacon of Edessa. He discredits in advance all the sophristry (wise guys teaching philosophy) which was put forth at the time of the 'Reformation', and thus comments on the words of the institution of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Lord:

"Do not believe that what I have just given to you is bread, receive it, eat it, do not crumble it away. That which I have called My Body, truly is so. The smallest morsel is sufficient to sanctify millions of souls and suffices to give life to those who receive it. Receive and eat with faith, do not waver, for it is my body, and he who partakes of it with faith partakes of the fire of the Holy Spirit. It seems to him who partakes without faith to be ordinary bread, but to him who with faith partakes of the Bread consecrated in My Name, if he be pure it preserves his purity; if a sinner it obtains his pardon. Let those who reject, despise or outrage this Bread know that of a certainty they do outrage to the Son, Who has called and has made bread to be His Body. Take and eat, and by it partake of the Holy Spirit, for it truly My Body, and he who eats thereof has eternal life. It is the Bread of heaven come down from on high unto us. The manna which the Israelites ate in the desert, the manna which they gathered and which they despised although it fell from heaven, was a figure of the spiritual food you have just received. Take ye all of it and eat, in eating this Bread you eat My Body, the True source of the redemption."

Never did St. Ephrem think himself anything other than a great sinner; we can read in his various writings his self-accusations and his confessions. He had the gift of tears and for years he wept, literally without ceasing, according to the testimony of St. Gregory of Nyssa, who wrote: "At times he was weeping over the sins of men, and again over his own. His sighs succeeded his tears, and then brought them forth again." It was also said that the tears he shed so profusely, instead of disfiguring his face, seemed to augment its serenity and grace; all who had seen or heard St. Ephrem were inspired to venerate his holiness.

St. Gregory of Nyssa remarked of the preaching of St. Ephrem: "Although his tongue was prompt and the words flowed from his mouth like a torrent, these were too slow to express his thoughts. For this reason he prayed God: 'Hold back, Lord, the waves of Your grace!' The sea of understanding which was seeking an outlet through his tongue bore heavily upon him, because the organs of speech did not suffice for what his mind presented to him, for the benefit of others." In the Syrian Liturgy, St. Ephrem still is called the Harp of the Holy Spirit.See, something good can come out of Syria!

St. Ephrem, please pray for our leaders, that they be on fire for the Holy Ghost, and teach us what we need to know to reach eternal happiness.

St. Ephrem wrote a lot of different types of things, from poems, hymns, etc. The most well known of these writings is the Prayer of Saint Ephrem that is a part of most days of fasting in Eastern Christianity:

O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, meddling, lust of power, and idle talk. But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love to thy servant. Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own sins and not to judge my brother, for thou art blessed unto ages of ages. Amen. O God, be gracious to me, a sinner.


Following are some other writings, taken from the Greek Orthodox Church:

Quotations
"Whenever I have meditated upon You I have acquired a veritable treasure from You; whatever aspect of You I have contemplated, a stream has flowed from You; there is no way I can contain it. Your fountain, Lord, is hidden from the person who does not thirst for You" (Faith 32:2-3).

"The hutzpah of our love is pleasing to you, O Lord, just as it pleased you that we should steal from your bounty."

"The hater of mankind, in his shameless impudence, attacks the Holy Church in the person of her servers. O Lord, do not leave Thy holy Church without Thy care, that the promise that Thou didst utter concerning her invincibility may not be shown false."

"Blessed is the person who has consented to become the close friend of faith and of prayer: he lives in single-mindedness and makes prayer and faith stop by with him. Prayer that rises up in someone's heart serves to open up for us the door of heaven: that person stands in converse with the Divinity and gives pleasure to the Son of God. Prayer makes peace with the Lord's anger and with the vehemence of His wrath. In this way too, tears that well up in the eyes can open the door of compassion." 

"The Seraph could not touch the fire's coal with his fingers, but just brought it close to Isaiah's mouth: the Seraph did not hold it, Isaiah did not consume it, but us our Lord has allowed to do both."
(Ephrem is) "The greatest poet of the patristic age and, perhaps, the only theologian-poet to rank beside Dante." — Robert Murray.


Hymns

Troparion (Tone 8)
By a flood of tears you made the desert fertile,
And your longing for God brought forth fruits in abundance.
By the radiance of miracles you illumined the whole universe.
O our holy father Ephraim, pray to Christ our God to save our souls!

Kontakion (Tone 2)
O holy father Ephraim,As you meditated constantly on the final judgment,
You shed abundant tears of sorrow,
Making your struggles examples that we could follow and imitate,
And awakening the slothful to repentance:
You are indeed a father of high renown.