From the Mouth of God

One of the monks saw in a dream a company of angels coming down from heaven by the commandment of God, and one of them held in his hand a scroll that was written on the inside and on the outside, and the angels said to each other, "Who is fit to be entrusted with this?"

Then some of them mentioned one man, and others another, and others answered and said, "Indeed those you mention are holy and righteous, but not sufficiently so to be trusted with this thing."

After they had considered many names of the saints, they finally said, "No one is fit to be entrusted with this except Ephraim."

Then the hermit who was having this vision saw that they gave the scroll to Ephraim. When he got up in the morning he heard they were saying, "Ephraim is teaching and the words flow from his mouth like water from a fountain."

Then the hermit who had seen the vision realized that whatever Ephraim said came from the Holy Spirit.

Fruit of the Vine

In that place when Ephraim of holy memory was a boy, he saw in sleep, or by revelation, that a vine was planted on his tongue and it grew and filled the whole earth with very great fruitfulness so all the birds of the air came and ate the fruits of that vine and spread the fruit further.

The Virtue of Prayer

Virtues are formed by prayer. Prayer preserves temperance, suppresses anger, restrains pride and envy, draws down the Holy Spirit in to the soul and raises man to heaven.

St. Ephraim the Syrian

THE LENTEN PRAYER

O Lord and Master of my life
take from me the spirit of sloth,
faint-heartedness, 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 errors
and not to judge my brother;
for Thou art blessed unto the ages of ages.
Amen.

Ephraim the Syrian (c. 306 – 373) was a deacon, prolific Syriac language hymn writer and theologian of the 4th century. He is venerated by Christians throughout the world, and especially among Syriac Christians as a saint. Ephraim wrote a wide variety of hymns, poems and homilies in verse, as well as prose biblical commentaries. These were works of practical theology for the edification of the church in troubled times. So popular were his works, that, for centuries after his death, Christian authors wrote hundreds of pseudepigraphous works in his name. Ephraim's works witness to an early, vibrant expression of Christian faith, little touched by the European modes of thought, and more engaged with eastern methods of discourse.