St Cyril of Alexandria

THIRD WEEK OF LENT - Year II - Friday

Night Office Reading. So early it can be difficult to listen. Nothing is wrong with my hearing, the acoustics can be fuzzy, the reader may be unclear, my attention may falter. In spite of all, in some morning, the Holy Spirit penetrates through the fog and illuminates the message. This morning it was the case of the words of the brilliant theologian Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444). It makes me want to share more of Cyril’s love in expounding the filial relation of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. First Reading From the book of Exodus (35:30 - 36:1; 37:1-9) Responsory Psalm 84:2-3; 132:7 How dear to me your dwelling place, Lord God of hosts! My soul is yearning for the courts of the Lord. - My heart and my flesh exult in the living God. Let us go to the place where he dwells; let us worship at his footstool - My heart and ... Second Reading From the commentary on Saint John's gospel by Saint Cyril of Alexandria (Lib. 11, 10: PG 74, 544-545) In this work, written before the outbreak of the Nestorian controversy in 429, Cyril seeks to bring out the dogmatic meaning of the gospel and to refute heresy. He teaches in this passage that by offering himself as a sacrificial victim, Christ reconciled the world with the Father and so made it possible for us to receive the Holy Spirit, through whom we are sanctified and given a share in the divine nature. Christ said: For their sake I sanctify myself. In terms of the law, any offering made to God was said to be sanctified. Such for example was the offering the Israelites made of all their firstborn children. Sanctify to me all the firstborn, God commanded his saintly Moses. In other words, consecrate and offer them, set them apart as sacred. Since sanctification, then. was regarded as the equivalent of consecration and setting apart, we may say that in this sense the Son of God sanctified himself for our sake; for he offered himself as a victim, a holy sacrifice to God the Father, and by so doing he reconciled the world with the Father and restored the fallen human race to his friendship. For he, Scripture says, is our peace. We must realize, however, that our return to God is not accomplished by Christ our Saviour except through the Spirit in which he causes us to share and by which we are sanctified, for it is the Spirit that binds us to God and in a real way makes us one with him. By receiving the Spirit through the Son we become sharers in the divine nature and, in the Son. we receive the Father also. Concerning Christ John in his wisdom wrote to us: We know that we are in him and he is in us because he allows us to share his own Spirit. And what does Paul say? The proof that you are his children is that God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, the Spirit that cries out, "Abba, Father." If we had remained without a share in the Spirit, we should have had no experience of God's presence within us; nor could we ever have become the children of God had we not been enriched by the Spirit to whom we owe that title. How indeed could we have been adopted as children and enabled to share in the divine nature if God did not dwell within us, and if we had not been united to him by being called to receive a share in the Spirit? Now, however, we are sharers in the supreme Being and have become temples of God. For God's only Son sanctified himself on account of our sins; in other words, he consecrated and offered himself as a holy and fragrant sacrifice to God the Father, thus removing the barrier of sin that separated us from God. Henceforward there was nothing to hinder us from having access to him and adhering to him in close communion through participation in the Holy Spirit, who restores to us our original righteousness and holiness. If sin separates us from God, righteousness will surely be a bond of union with him and a means of setting us at his side with no division between us. We have been justified, Scripture declares, by our faith in Christ, who was delivered up for our sins and raised for our justification. In him, as the first fruits of the human race, our whole nature was restored to newness of life, and returning as it were to its beginning, was formed anew in order to be sanctified. Responsory 1 Corinihians 3: 17; 6:19-20 Do you not know that you are God's temple, and that God's spirit lives in you? - God's temple is holy, and you are that temple. You do not belong to yourselves; you were brought for a price. So use your body for the glory of God. - God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.