Here is part of today’s Old Testament reading, from Hosea: ‘When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the more they went from me;
they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and burning incense to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of compassion, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them’.

The words ‘Out of Egypt I called my son’ are much loved in the Coptic Church. There is a church next to the Nile, in Cairo, in the suburb of Maadi, which has a glass case with a copy of the Bible carefully placed inside it. The story goes that one day a book was spotted floating down the river. When it was rescued, the book was found to be a Bible, open at these very words! It has been revered since that time.

As for us, we are truly led with cords of compassion and with bands of love. May you know this in your own life, and may God bless you this day.