Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Wednesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Memorial of St. Ephrem
June 9, 2021
2 Cor 3:4-11, Ps 99, Mt 5:17-19
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following points were attempted in the homily:
- In today’s first reading, St. Paul focuses on the great gift of the new and eternal covenant made for us by Christ by contrasting it to the former covenant. He calls the first Covenant one “carved in letters on stone,” meaning the Covenant of Sinai, and described it as a “ministry of death” or “ministry of condemnation” because it was meant to help us to learn to die to ourselves, die to our own powers, die to our dream to save us by our own efforts, and open ourselves up to God’s power and his life. St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians would call it a pedagogue, a disciplinarian, a tutor, who, according to ancient custom, would drill us and even “kill us” in lessons so that we might be brought by him to the Master who would build on those foundations. It was to open us up to receive and respond to God’s covenant of salvation by grace received in faith. He says that if the first Covenant was “so glorious,” “how much more” will the new Covenant by the Spirit and the “ministry of righteousness … abound much more in glory.”
- Sometimes when we read such contrasts in St. Paul, who was battling against a tendency among the Pharisees and the “Judaizing Christians” to find salvation in the works of the law rather than by faith in Christ through grace, we can think that the Old Covenant was annulled or even, perhaps, a bad thing. No, it was a great thing and a preparation for the new! As one biblical scholar says, the Old Testament was like an unfinished symphony waiting for Christ to come and bring everything together. That’s what Jesus himself describes in the Gospel today, taken from the Sermon on the Mount. He says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” He was coming to respond to all of the Old Covenant hopes, to be the “Yes” as we heard yesterday to all God’s promises, even the littlest: “Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,” he continued, “not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.” He was going to fulfill all of the typological signs of the Old Testament and bring the entire law to find its fulfillment in Christ’s two-fold command of love, on which all the law and the prophets he would say “hang.” He would do this not just by his words but also by his example. Some of the old forms of the “disciplinarian” would fall away in this fulfillment — like dietary laws, even circumcision! — as we received new wineskins for the new wine of the Covenant, but they would not be “abolished.” They would rather be brought to completion, be fulfilled, in a similar way to how a seed metamorphoses into a tree or an embryo into an infant into an adult.
- And he wants us to follow him, to be united to him, in this fulfillment of every letter, every smallest part of the letter, of the Law. He wants us, like him, not to live the letter by the “letter [that] brings death” but to live the smallest part of the letter by the “Spirit [who] gives life,” cooperating with God as he seeks to unite ourselves to him in love. That’s why Jesus pivots and begins to speak about how he wants us to be great by living by the Spirit in fulfilling the law of love. “Whoever obeys and teaches these commandments,” he said, “will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.” And he wants each of us to be great in this way. He is also clear that the one who “breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so” will be “least in the Kingdom of heaven.” We don’t get a “pass” from the law by living according to the Spirit as “spiritual” people rather than “religious.” What Jesus wants, rather, is for us to fulfill the law by exceeding the letter and getting to what the letter was pointing to. The letter is meant to train us to recognize, ultimately, our need for the Spirit so that when the Spirit is fully given we will fully cooperate.
- Someone who was great in this way and taught others to do the same is the extraordinary fourth century Deacon and Doctor of the Church we remember today, St. Ephrem, from Syria. He was a prolific teacher in an age of terrible heresies against the divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit. At the request of his bishop, he opened up a school in Nisibis to teach the light of the faith aright and inoculate people against false teachings. He was an incredible poet and songwriter, putting the truths of the faith into more than 3,000 songs so that Christians could learn and pass on the faith through music. He was called the “Harp of the Holy Spirit” because not only did he teach clearly about the Holy Spirit but taught through the Holy Spirit, who led him to some of the deepest insights about the truths of our faith in the history of the Church. The Spirit gave him life and he was the instrument through which the same Holy Spirit enlivened so many others. He also showed how glorious is the ministry of the Spirit, expressing the truths of the faith not in dry theological treatises but in poetry and in liturgical and sacred music, because as Pope Benedict XVI said several years ago in a Catechesis on what we can all learn from him, he always connected beauty and truth so that the truth could be prayed liturgically. There was a union between worship and way of life, between teaching and putting it into practice, between our communion with God and our communion with others.
- Among St. Ephrem’s most treasured and renowned mystical teachings were his writings on the Holy Eucharist. We could say that he looked at Holy Communion as the opportunity to receive within Christ’s own fulfillment of the law, helping us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, from within to fulfill the law and become great in his Kingdom. In one poem, St. Ephrem writes from the perspective of Jesus, “Take, eat, entertaining no doubt of faith, because this is My Body, and whoever eats it in belief eats in it Fire and Spirit.” To enter into Communion with the Lord is to consume “Fire” and “Spirit,” a fire and a Holy Spirit that can burn away false notions of righteousness and help us to live according to the new and more glorious covenant Christ culminated during the Last Supper and on Calvary.
The readings for todays’ Mass were:
Reading 1 2 COR 3:4-11
Brothers and sisters:
Such confidence we have through Christ toward God.
Not that of ourselves we are qualified to take credit
for anything as coming from us;
rather, our qualification comes from God,
who has indeed qualified us as ministers of a new covenant,
not of letter but of spirit;
for the letter brings death, but the Spirit gives life.
Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, was so glorious
that the children of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses
because of its glory that was going to fade,
how much more will the ministry of the Spirit be glorious?
For if the ministry of condemnation was glorious,
the ministry of righteousness will abound much more in glory.
Indeed, what was endowed with glory
has come to have no glory in this respect
because of the glory that surpasses it.
For if what was going to fade was glorious,
how much more will what endures be glorious.
Responsorial Psalm PS 99:5, 6, 7, 8, 9
R. (see 9c) Holy is the Lord our God.
Extol the LORD, our God,
and worship at his footstool;
holy is he!
R. Holy is the Lord our God.
Moses and Aaron were among his priests,
and Samuel, among those who called upon his name;
they called upon the LORD, and he answered them.
R. Holy is the Lord our God.
From the pillar of cloud he spoke to them;
they heard his decrees and the law he gave them.
R. Holy is the Lord our God.
O LORD, our God, you answered them;
a forgiving God you were to them,
though requiting their misdeeds.
R. Holy is the Lord our God.
Extol the LORD, our God,
and worship at his holy mountain;
for holy is the LORD, our God.
R. Holy is the Lord our God.
Alleluia PS 25:4B, 5A
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Teach me your paths, my God,
and guide me in your truth.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel MT 5:17-19
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,
not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter
will pass from the law,
until all things have taken place.
Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments
and teaches others to do so
will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven.
But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments
will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”
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