September 11, 2022 - "Saint Cyril of Jerusalem"

I am continuing this series on Doctors of the Church.  Today I want to talk about Saint Cyril of Jerusalem.  He was born at or near Jerusalem either in 313 or 315.  He received an excellent literary education which helped him in his study of the Scriptures.  He was ordained a priest by Bishop Maximus and ordained bishop of Jerusalem in 348.  In the thirty-eight years he served as a bishop, he was deposed and exiled three times.  His third period of exile lasted for eleven years.  The reason for his being exiled was his loyalty to the Council of Nicaea as well as faction fights that were so characteristic of that contentious era.  When Emperor Valens died in 378, Cyril was able to retain possession of his see and restore unity and peace to his faithful.  There he remained until his death in 386.
 
Cyril has been described as the great liturgical Doctor of the Church.  During his time as bishop, Jerusalem developed the elaborate liturgies that were so admired by the many pilgrims who came to the Holy Land during the fourth century.  Cyril’s fame largely rests on his Catechetical Lectures that were probably delivered around 350.  These twenty-four lectures, which were taken down in shorthand, fall into three parts:  an introductory address, eighteen instructions that were given to those seeking baptism, and five lectures addressed to those who had recently received the Sacraments of Initiation.  These final five have sometimes been ascribed to Bishop John of Jerusalem; however, it is likely that Bishop John reworked materials already developed by Cyril.
 
The Catechetical Lectures provide the most complete picture that we have today of instruction that was given to those wishing to receive the Sacrament of Initiation in the fourth century.  No other document from that time period gives you sense of being there as the bishop was instructing the catechumens and the recently baptized and confirmed adults of his diocese.  We get the sense that the bishop really got to know the people he was instructing as he would sometimes make reference to the details of their daily lives.  Despite the controversies raging in the church of his day Cyril does not enter into disputed questions or condemn different persons and parties in the church.  Cyril’s method is to present the essentials of belief in the context of the liturgical life of the community.
 
I want to close this reflection on Cyril of Jerusalem by quoting from his fifth catechesis where he dealt with the nature of faith:
“It is not only among us, who are marked with the name of Christ, that the dignity of faith is great; all the business of the world, even of those outside the church, is accomplished by faith. By faith, marriage laws join in union persons who were strangers to one another.  By faith agriculture is sustained; for a man does not endure the toil involved unless he believes that he will reap a harvest.  By faith, seafaring men, entrusting themselves to a tiny wooden craft, exchange the solid element of the land for the unstable motion of the waves.  Not only among us does this hold true but also, as I have said, among those outside the fold.  For though they do not accept the Scriptures but advance certain doctrines of their own, yet even these they receive on faith.”
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem was named a Doctor of Church in 1882 by Pope Leo XIII.
Until next week, Fr. John