Wednesday, May 24 : Saint Ephrem

Our Lord was trampled down by death but, in return, he cleared a way that crushes death. He submitted to death and underwent it willingly so as to destroy it in spite of itself. For, at death’s orders, our Lord “set out bearing his cross” (Jn 19,17). But he cried out on the cross and drew the dead from hell… He is the glorious “son of a carpenter” (Mt 13,55) who, on the chariot of his cross, emerged from the insatiable jaws of the dwellings of the dead and has transferred all humankind into the dwelling place of life (Col 1,13). And since, on account of the tree of paradise, humankind had fallen into the dwellings of the dead, it is on account of the tree of the cross that it has passed into the dwelling place of life. Bitterness had been grafted onto the wood of the former; but onto the latter sweetness has been grafted so that we might recognise in him the leader whom nothing created can resist. Glory to you! You have thrown your cross like a bridge over death so that men might cross it from the land of death to that of life… Glory to you! You clothed yourself with the body of mortal Adam and made it the source of life for all mortals. Yes, you are alive! For your torturers treated your life like sowers: they sowed your life in the depths of the earth as grain is sown so that it might rise up of itself and bring with it much fruit (Jn 12,24). Come, let us make of our love a great and all-embracing censer; let us pour out songs and prayers to him who made of his cross an incense to the Godhead and who has lavished bounty on us all by his blood.
maronite readings – rosary,team