5 June 2019
Memorial of Saint Boniface, Bishop and Martyr
When Paul meets with the presbyters of Ephesus in Acts 20:28-38, they all know that it is the last time that Paul will be with them, for which reason the final words and actions of Paul have special significance. In a similar situation, most of us would embrace this moment of communion and emphasize the human bonds that one makes with others when faced with adversity. While there is perhaps a bit of this in this final farewell, there is something about it that would strike us today as a bit out of the ordinary: “When Paul had finished speaking he knelt down and prayed with them all” (Acts 20:36). Though many early Christians probably prayed in the “orans position,” standing with their hands up, this moment in which Paul and the priests of Ephesus pray on their knees remains one of the most visually striking moments of prayer in all of the scripture. Perhaps today we might stand and join hands to pray spontaneously, but Paul’s action of kneeling and having others kneel with him (and not within a liturgy!) is an expression of the fact that it is God himself who gathers this community and who is the source of their joy and communion. Blessed are the little children who kneel together to say their prayers by their beds before going to sleep. And blessed are those friends in the Lord whose deepest affection for one another can be expressed by kneeling together before the Source of that Love. It is the Lord himself who makes them one: “Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one… As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth” (Cf. John 17:11b-19).