A Hymn in the Darkness (Bede)

Homily - A Hymn in the Darkness (Bede)

It was to a land of dark people he was sent, to clothe them by Baptism in white robes. 

His grateful dawn dispelled India's painful darkness. It was his mission to espouse India to the One-Begotten. 

The merchant is blessed for having so great a treasure. Edessa thus became the blessed city by possessing the greatest pearl India could yield. 

Thomas works miracles in India, and at Edessa Thomas is destined to baptize peoples perverse and steeped in darkness, and that in the land of India.

[And, so the Evil One cried...]

... Into what land shall I fly from the just?

I stirred up Death the Apostles to slay, that by their death I might escape their blows.

But harder still am I now stricken: the Apostle I slew in India has overtaken me in Edessa; here and there he is all himself.

There went I, and there was he: here and there to my grief I find him.

It was thus that Saint Ephrem hymned in the Darkness the Light of the World

And the Darkness overcame it not!

O that the wonderful grace and virtue declared in all the saints, who have been the chosen vessels of God the Father’s grace, and the lights of the world in their several generations would be manifest in all those entrusted with the grace of Holy Orders!

O that today such hymns could be sung of all those successors of the Apostles who follow after Saint Thomas, the Twin!

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Sources

Medlycott 1905, ch. ii.

Hymns of Saint Ephrem, edited by Lamy (Ephr. Hymni et Sermones, IV).