Collect of the Day
Let us pray…Heavenly Father, Your servant Cyril steadfastly proclaimed Your Son, Jesus Christ, to be one person, fully God and fully man. By Your infinite mercy, keep us constant in faith and worship of Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Bio: Cyril (ca. A.D. 376-444) became archbishop of Alexandria, Egypt, in 412. Throughout his career he defended a number of orthodox doctrines, among them the teaching that Mary, the mother of Jesus, is “rightly called and truly is the Mother of God”–Theotokos, “the God-bearer” (Formula of Concord, VIII, Ep VIII, 12). In 431 the Council of Ephesus affirmed this teaching that the Son of Mary is also true God. The writings of Cyril on the doctrines of the Trinity and the person of Christ reveal him to be one of the most able theologians of his time. Cyril’s Christology influenced subsequent church councils and was a primary source for Lutheran confessional writings. (Source: LCMS website: Commemoration Biographies)
Writings by St. Cyril: “We must note, therefore, that he that does things pleasing to God, serves Christ but he that follows his own wishes, is a follower, rather of himself and not of God.” We literally have millions of followers of the ‘sacred’ self. We are holy because we are created, but when we fell into sin, no longer holy, God sent His Son born of the Virgin and by faith now being sanctified (being made holy) by the Holy Spirit in the Christ’s redemption in true repentance and forgiven by His blood shed on Cross. Christ is the one who is the Son of Mary, Son of God. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” The “him” is Jesus. He alone is worthy of all honor to follow Who will lead us to green pastures and the Kingdom Come. The problem of following one’s own wishes is our wants and wishes issue from the transgression of the old Adam, my wrong, so apt to stray. So…
“When the blessed Gabriel announced to the holy Virgin the generation of the only-begotten Son of God according to the flesh, he said, “You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High” [Luke 1:31–32]. But He also was named Christ, because according to His human nature He was anointed with us, according to the words of the psalmist: “You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions” [Psalm 45:7]. For though He was the giver of the Holy Spirit, He did not give it in part to those who were worthy, that is, to Himself. He was full of the Holy Spirit, and of His fullness we have all received, as it is written. Nevertheless, as He is man He
was called “anointed,” that is, the Christ, to indicate that the Holy Spirit rested upon Him spiritually and not after the manner of men. This was so that the Holy Spirit might abide in us though He had been driven from us in the beginning by Adam’s fall. Therefore the only-begotten Word of God made flesh was called Christ. And since He possessed the power proper to God as His own, He performed miracles.
—Cyril of AlexandriaConcordia Publishing House. Treasury of Daily Prayer (Kindle Locations 14353-14361). Concordia Publishing House. Kindle Edition.
From The Book of Concord: The Augsburg Confession, Article X, The Holy Supper: “…there is a long exposition of Cyril on John 15, in which he teaches that Christ is corporeally offered us in the Supper. For he says thus: Nevertheless, we do not deny that we are joined spiritually to Christ by true faith and sincere love. But that we have no mode of connection with Him, according to the flesh, this indeed we entirely deny. And this, we say, is altogether foreign to the divine Scriptures. For who has doubted that Christ is in this manner a vine, and we the branches, deriving thence life for ourselves? Hear Paul saying 1 Cor. 10:17; Rom. 12:5; Gal. 3:28: We are all one body in Christ; although we are many, we are, nevertheless, one in Him; for we are, all partakers of that one bread. Does he perhaps think that the virtue of the mystical benediction is unknown to us? Since this is in us, does it not also, by the communication of Christ’s flesh, cause Christ to dwell in us bodily? And a little after: Whence we must consider that Christ is in us not only according to the habit, which we call love, but also by natural participation, etc.
O higher than the cherubim,
more glorious than the seraphim,
lead their praises, Alleluia!
Thou bearer of th’ eternal Word,
most gracious, magnify the Lord: Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
LSB #670, Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones
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