[00:00] In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, our Lord reminds us of our vocation that Christians are to be a witness of our love and faith in Jesus Christ to the world. And that witness is to spread, is to be, to bring others to share in that faith. And Christ shares with us that it is the Christian life, the spiritual life, that brings humanity

[00:36] to share in God's divine life, and in this, deepening its commitment in its union with God. And so our Lord warns against salt losing its taste, that that can be done by becoming lukewarm, becoming filled with distractions of this world, be it material or searching

[01:10] for power or fame, or it could be the loss of taste through sin as well, compromising with our faith and not living our faith. What are the remedies to preserve the salt of our spiritual life, that we may be a witness as a light that is through prayer, which is the foundation of our spiritual life, a life of prayer. We cannot continue in our spiritual life, in our life in union with Christ without

[01:49] prayer. That prayer has to be the foundation of our life. Frequent use of the sacraments, especially confession and receiving Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, meditation and devotions and other spiritual exercises. But also our Lord shares with us that we are called to be an influence through our good works, just so your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds, our spiritual and corporal works of mercy, or just doing the duties that we do

[02:22] daily for love of God, doing them and offering them to God, the duties of our daily life. In this, we are glorifying God and glorify your Heavenly Father. So by our good works, our good deeds, we are glorifying God and being a witness to our faith. Today, we honor in the liturgy, a very special saint, St. Ephraim, who is a deacon and a doctor of the Church. St. Ephraim was born in Syria and eventually he would go and spend his time in what we

[02:59] now call modern day Turkey. He died in about the year 343, about that period, 343. He was 67 when he died. He has some interesting titles. He is called the Harp of the Holy Spirit and Mary's Own Singer. He's called the Harp of the Holy Spirit because he composed hymns and poems regarding the faith, on teaching the faith and on living the faith.

[03:35] So that he's called the Harp of the Holy Spirit and for this, of course, he's a doctor of the Church for defending the faith against heresy through songs and poems and his writings. He's also called Mary's Own Singer. He is one of the earliest people to have defended or been a witness to Mary's Immaculate Conception, that he, as early as this time, he was already writing about Mary's Immaculate

[04:08] Conception being preserved from the stain of sin. He's also defended the title of Mary as the New Eve, where Eve listened with her ear, listened to the serpent and was influenced by the serpent. Mary listened with her ear to the angel and brought redemption and salvation in her fiat to God. And so, St. Ephraim spent his last years in a cave and he lived in a cave on a high cliff

[04:43] as a hermit and in the area where he was living, a plague broke out, there was a famine and then that was followed by a plague and he went out to do works of charity and caring for the sick who were dying from the plague. And while he was caring for the sick, he himself contracted the plague and died and for this, he's called a martyr of charity, that he gave his life caring for others who were ill.

[05:14] So, St. Ephraim is a very special saint for us to honor today and we can ask his help that we might, like him, be a harp of the Holy Spirit, that we might allow the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts and our souls and that we may reflect that, reflect that. He, one of the other things he mentioned was Mary being the refuge of those in despair and a mediatrix of peace, that she always brings peace to us and that she is the mirror

[05:47] of the light of Christ. May St. Ephraim pray for us today and may we turn to him and ask his help that we may imitate him in his great devotion and zeal and allow the Holy Spirit to fill us and that we may truly reflect our love for Christ in our daily efforts in loving and serving God. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.