Guarding and proclaiming the unchanging truth in a changing world

We Are One Body in Christ through the Mercy of God

27th May 2020

Cyril of Alexandria was born in the small town of Didouseya, Egypt in 376. At the age of 38 he became the patriarch of Alexandria, a turbulent cosmopolitan city with over a half million inhabitants comprised equally of pagans, Jews and Christians. Cyril championed the truth of the Incarnation, through which the Son's divine nature and assumed human nature became united inseparably in the person of Jesus, the Incarnate Word, who remains fully God and fully man, forever seated at the right hand of the Father.

We Are One Body in Christ through the Mercy of God

We, though many, are one body and members one of another, as scripture says, for Christ has linked us together with the chains of love. For he has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances. We ought then all to have the same care for one another, and if one member suffers, all the members suffer together; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice.

So welcome one another, says the apostle Paul, as Christ welcomed you, for the glory of God. We shall welcome one another if we choose to care for one another, to bear one another's burdens, and to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. For it was in this way that God welcomed us in Christ. The apostle John truly said that the world was loved so much by God the Father that the Son was given for our sake. He was given in exchange for the lives of all of us; and so we escaped from death and were redeemed from death and sin. 

Paul explains the working of the redemption when he says that Christ became a servant of the circumcision for the sake of God's truthfulness. For just as God had promised to the Jewish patriarchs that he would bless their posterity and make it like the stars of heaven in number, so too he appeared in human nature and became man, though he was God the Word, who preserves all creation in existence and, being God, confers on all creatures the state of their well-being. He came into the world endowed with human nature; however, not to be served but to serve, as he said, and to give his life as a ransom for many. He claims to have come in visible form, in order to fulfill the promise made to Israel: I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 

Paul speaks the truth, then when he declares that Christ became a servant to the circumcision in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and that he was sent by his divine Father for this purpose and to fulfill God's mercy to the Gentiles, so that they too might glorify the Savior and Redeemer as the creator and architect of the universe. In this way, once the mercy which comes down from heaven reached out to all men, the Gentiles were included in it; the mystery of the wisdom contained in Christ can be seen to have achieved its merciful plan. For in place of those who had fallen, the whole world is saved through the mercy of God.

Cyril of Alexandria

Ephesians 4:1-16
1 Corinthians 12:4-27

Prayer: 

Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit
the whole body of your faithful people
is governed and sanctified:
Receive our supplications and prayers
which we offer before you
for all members of your holy Church,
that in their vocation and ministry
they may truly and devoutly serve you;
through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Amen.

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Gafcon Secretariat, Christ Church Central, The DQ Centre, Fitzwilliam Street, Sheffield  S1 4JR  United Kingdom

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