Deacon, Doctor of the Church, the Harp of the Spirit · Feast: 13 February
Open in the Daily Word app“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.” Colossians 3:16
Mar Aprem, known in the West as St Ephrem, is the greatest poet and teacher of the Syriac-speaking Church. He was born about 306 at Nisibis, in what is today south-eastern Turkey, probably of Christian parents, though a later Syriac biography says his father was a pagan priest. He grew up under the bishop St Jacob of Nisibis, was ordained a deacon, and taught in the Church of his city. Tradition remembers him as remaining a deacon all his life.
When the Roman Empire handed Nisibis over to Persia in 363, Ephrem left with the Christians of the city and settled at Edessa, today Urfa. There he spent his last ten years teaching. He wrote commentaries on the Scriptures, including Genesis and the Diatessaron, the harmony of the Gospels then read in Syriac churches. Above all he wrote hundreds of teaching hymns, called madrashe, on the Nativity, the Faith, Paradise, the Church, Virginity and the Paschal mystery. Heretics of his day were spreading their errors by songs, and he answered with songs of the true faith.
He teaches not by definitions but through images drawn from Scripture and nature. He loved the Mother of God and praised her purity, and he spoke of the Eucharist as fire and Spirit hidden in bread and wine. According to Palladius, during a famine at Edessa near the end of his life he left his cell and organised relief for the hungry. He died at Edessa in June 373, by tradition on 9 June.
Pope Benedict XV declared him a Doctor of the Church in 1920. The Syro-Malabar calendar keeps his feast on 9 June. The Syro-Malankara Panchangam remembers him in the first week of the Great Fast, on Saturday, together with Mar Theodore the martyr, and in 2027 that falls on 13 February. A short Lenten prayer against sloth, despair, lust of power and idle talk is widely prayed under his name, although scholars doubt that he composed it. Syriac prayer in both our traditions is full of his voice.
Ephrem shows that a hymn can carry doctrine further than an argument.
He studied the Scriptures and turned them into prayer for the people.
Losing his city did not end his work; he began again at Edessa.
The poet left his cell when people were starving.
Jacob of Serugh, writing more than a century later, praises Ephrem for teaching women to sing the faith in church, so that their voices also proclaimed the Gospel. This is one of the earliest accounts of such choirs in the Church.
Palladius, in his Lausiac History, tells that during a famine the wealthy of Edessa would not distribute their grain because they trusted no one. Ephrem offered to do it himself, took charge of the work, cared for the hungry and sick, and died soon after.
A later Syriac life says that when people came to make Ephrem a bishop, he ran through the marketplace behaving like a madman until they went away. The tale reflects the memory of his humility.
You alone, O Lord, and your Mother are more beautiful than all; for there is no blemish in you, nor any stain in your Mother.
St Ephrem, Carmina Nisibena 27, in substance
In your bread is hidden the Spirit who cannot be eaten; in your wine dwells the fire that cannot be drunk.
St Ephrem, Hymns on the Faith 10, in substance
O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power and idle talk; give me the spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love.
Lenten prayer attributed to St Ephrem, in substance
What we sing, we come to believe and remember (Colossians 3:16).
The Eucharist is the living God given to us.
True praise goes out to those in need.
Dear friends, today we remember Mar Aprem, a deacon of the fourth century whom the Church calls the Harp of the Spirit. He was never a bishop or a theologian in a great court. He was a teacher in a frontier town, and when that town was lost to Persia he became a refugee. Yet Pope Benedict XV named him a Doctor of the whole Church.
St Paul tells us: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God” (Colossians 3:16). Ephrem took this seriously. When false teachers spread their ideas through popular songs, he did not only complain. He wrote better songs, taught them to choirs, and the people learned the true faith by singing it.
What do we sing, and what do our children sing? The songs in our homes shape our hearts. Ephrem sang of Mary, of Paradise, of the Birth of the Lord and of the Eucharist. He said that in the bread is hidden the Spirit, and in the cup a fire. When we come to the Holy Mass / Holy Qurbana, do we come as those who approach fire, with reverence and with love?
And this singer was no dreamer. When famine struck Edessa, he came out and organised help for the hungry, and it seems to have cost him his life. Let us learn from him that praise and mercy belong together. Let us sing the prayers of our Church with attention, read the word of God at home, and share what we have with those who go without. Amen.
O God, you made your deacon Mar Aprem a harp of the Holy Spirit to sing the mysteries of your Son. Through his prayers fill our hearts with your word, our mouths with your praise and our hands with mercy for the hungry, so that our lives may be one hymn to you. Amen.