“Let us make our love a great and universal offering,” encouraged deacon Saint Ephrem, Doctor of the Church and called “the harp of the Holy Spirit.”
For centuries, Catholics and non-Catholics have enriched their respective liturgies with the homilies and hymns of this saint, whose feast day is celebrated every June 9.
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Saint Ephrem was born in Nisibis (now Nusaybin, Turkey) around the year 306. He grew up without giving much importance to religion, but at the age of 18 he received Baptism and closely followed Saint James, Bishop of Nisibis, with whom he met. He claims to have attended the Council of Nicaea in 325.
After a long fight and negotiations, the Persians seized Nisibis and the Christians had to flee. The saint went on to live in an open cavern between the rocks of a high cliff near the city of Edessa and it was in that austerity and solitude that he wrote much of his spiritual works.
He used to go down to Edessa to preach, and the bishop appointed him director of the school of religious singing, from which many teachers came who gave solemnity to the religious festivals of various parishes. With his songs and compositions the saint defended the doctrine
It is said that at the end of his life he traveled to Caesarea to visit Saint Basil. In 372 there was a great famine in Edessa and Saint Ephrem was in charge of organizing the scarce goods and helping those in need.
He left for the Father’s House on June 9, 373 and was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XV in 1920. Among his writings stands out a list with titles to the Mother of God and the following prayer:
“Our Most Holy Lady, Mother of God, full of grace: You are the glory of our human nature, through which God’s gifts come to us. You are the most powerful being that exists, after the Holy Trinity; the Mediatrix of all of us before the Mediator who is Christ; You are the mysterious bridge that unites earth with heaven, you are the key that opens the doors of Paradise to us; our Advocate, our Intercessor You are the Mother of Him who is the most merciful and more good. Make our soul worthy to one day be at the right hand of your only Son, Jesus Christ.”
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