Opening Prayer
O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, 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 transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen.
— Lenten Prayer of St. Ephrem
TEXT
John 5:39-47 CEV
You search the Scriptures, because you think you will find eternal life in them. The Scriptures tell about me, but you refuse to come to me for eternal life.
I don’t care about human praise, but I do know that none of you love God. I have come with my Father’s authority, and you have not welcomed me. But you will welcome people who come on their own. How could you possibly believe? You like to have your friends praise you, and you don’t care about praise that the only God can give!
Don’t think that I will be the one to accuse you to the Father. You have put your hope in Moses, yet he is the very one who will accuse you. Moses wrote about me, and if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me. But if you don’t believe what Moses wrote, how can you believe what I say?
Read
Foolish is he or she who does not worship the ever-existing Word of God, the Lord, as equally God with the supernal Father.
Foolish is he or she who does not worship the Word, the Lord,
A human here appearing, as equally God with the heavenly Word.
The one divides the Word from the great Father, the other our human form and fleshiness form the Word.
Though being God, the Father’s Word took on our human being,
To mingle it with God, and be little amongst earthlings.
He is one God out of both, being so human as to make me God, instead of human. Be merciful, O wounded one on high!
Let that much suffice you. What more have I to do with an ineffable mind and mixture?
Both are God, you mortals, be content with reason’s limits.
If, then, I’ve won you over, much the better. But if you blacken the page with many myriads of words,
Come, and I’ll inscribe these little verses upon tables
With letters from my carving pen, which have no blackness in them.
— St. Gregory of Nazianzus, On God and Man