"Remember from where you have fallen" Exegetical-pastoral reading of the letter to the Church of Ephesus in Rev 2:1-7
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Abstract
The seven letters to the seven churches are encountered in the first section of the book of Revelations (1 – 3, 22) and they constitute the penitencial moment of the assembly gathered to listen to the Word of God. The symbols used by the author in his work demand a hermeneutic co-operation of the community that reads and listens so that they can be applied, once unveiled, to the personal and ecclesial situation of each age. Even today, the question asked by our Lord to Mary Magdalene – “Woman, why are you weeping?” (Jo 20, 15) – is directioned to each and every man who encounters himself in situations, particularly difficult, inviting him to look with confidence at the resurrection of the Lord. And is precisely this dimension of love in search of his beloved the principal reason that we find in the letter to the church in Efesus. The forgetfulness of the of the marvels realized by God in the history can be a reason for the lack of zeal of the announcement of the Gospel, which leads to the abandonment of the first love as a inevitable consequence.
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