Holy Martyr Sophia, and Her Three Daughters Faith, Hope, and Love.
Post-feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.
Ephesians 4:14-19; Mark 11:27-33.
Read Ephesians 4:14-19
The key to understand today’s Epistle reading comes from the first sentence of this chapter to the Ephesians (Ephesians 4:1-6): I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
In reference to this thought that is often expressed among Christians where it is said, “there is one God” with the intention of communicating a further thought that there really isn’t a difference between Christians, the error of that thinking becomes clear in today’s reading to the Ephesians. The reality has nothing to do with the fact that there is “One God;” it has everything to do with being “blown about by every wind of doctrine.” It is very easy to have certain ideas and ideologies and find many scriptures verses and create an entire way of thinking and being that is completely false. The ‘crown’ (meant in a negative sense) of that way of thinking and being, can be then justified by the fact that what? “there is only one God?”
The point that Saint Paul is trying to make has to do with the question, ‘is the body a healthy body or is is it a body wrought with sickness and disease?” He clearly describes what the “healthy” body looks like, one that lives in “all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace…” (Eph. 4:3) One where the very person of Christ, through “whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly…” (Eph. 4:16) … “building itself up in love.”
We are in the post season of the Universal Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross. Jesus says, “if anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” (Luke 9:23) And, “whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.” (Luke 14:27); so, one can see that right after the feast of the Nativity of Our Most Holy Lady, the Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary (one who is the primary example of picking up her cross to follow God’s Will) is the commemoration of the centrality of the Cross to guide the entire Liturgical Year and the authentic way, the only way of being Christian, of being Human, a human that is healthy and fully alive. Amen!