Tuesday, May 7 : Saint Ephrem

When he asked: “Where have you laid him?”, tears came to our Lord’s eyes. His tears were like rain, Lazarus was like seed and the tomb like the earth. He cried out in a voice like thunder and death trembled at his voice. Lazarus sprang up like the seed, came out and worshiped the Lord who had raised him up. Jesus… restored life to Lazarus and died in his place for, when he drew him out of the tomb and sat down at his table, he himself was symbolically buried by the oil Mary poured over his head (Mt 26,7). The power of the death that had overcome him for four days was wiped out… that death might know how easy it was for the Lord to overcome it on the third day… His promise is truthful: he had promised that he himself would come to life again on the third day (Mt 16,21)… Therefore the Lord restored their joy to Mary and Martha by treading down death to demonstrate that he himself would not be held by death for ever… From now on, every time someone says that rising on the third day is impossible, let them consider him who was raised on the fourth day… “Go and take away the stone.” What is this? He who raised a dead man and restored him to life, couldn’t he have opened the tomb and overturned the stone? He who said to his disciples: “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain: ‘Move from here to there’” (Mt 17,20), could he not move aside the stone, shutting the entrance to the tomb with one word? Certainly he could! He whose voice, when he hung on the cross, split rocks and sepulchers, could have taken away the stone with his word (Mt 27,51-52). But because he was Lazarus’ friend, he said: “Open it that the smell of decay may hit you, and you who wrapped him in his winding sheet, unbind him, that you may surely recognize the one you buried.”

maronite readings – rosary,team