Our Holy Father Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (397).
Nativity Fast.
Ephesians 2:11-13. Luke 13:18-29.
Read Ephesians 2:11-13
What are the important personal or family stories that you remember? Many families retell or even relive important events that they commemorate every year. Remembering is an important act, and one which we perform in the Liturgy in when we participate in the offering of Christ Himself for the life of the world through our remembrance.
In our reading today, St. Paul encourages us even to remember our lives before Jesus Christ and his salvation. Originally, the Gentile nations were cut off from the New Covenant in Christ’s blood. St. Paul is encouraging his Christian listeners to recognize this fact to increase both their gratitude and their zeal.
Whether we are converts to the faith, “Cradle Catholics” or “reverts,” living the “life of peace and repentance” that we pray for in the Liturgy requires us to constantly remember both our separation from God and His continual adoption and love.
St. John Chrysostom writes: Many are the evidences of God’s love of humanity. God has saved us through himself, and through himself in such a special way, remembering what we were when he saved us and to what point he has now brought us. For each of these stages in itself is a great proof of his benevolence. Paul now reviews at each stage what he writes. He has already said that God has saved us when we were dead in sins and children of wrath. Now Paul shows to what extent God has raised us. (Homily on Ephesians 5.2:11-12)