There’s no reason we would know about Cyril of Jerusalem, a bishop and a liturgical theologian and ultimately a saint. For those of us who make the claim to be liturgical historians, Cyril’s a big deal. Liturgy people know the 4th-century pilgrim Egeria who happened to be in Jerusalem to witness the Holy Week and Easter liturgies led by Bishop Cyril. Egeria is the earliest record we have of the liturgical rites of the time. Her descriptions has long fascinated and puzzling. Egeria’s eye-witness account was a progression (and a procession) of several days of liturgy as it was lived then; the witness she gives the nature of the promise of life given be the Lord. What Egeria and thus Cyril did was to recount the narrative of creation and salvation history as known through the lens of the Lord’s Paschal Mystery, i.e., the Lord’s passion, death, resurrection, and ascension.
The people in front of Cyril were reminded that by Easter all was done. No, he pointed us to think differently about the questions of life and the longing for God in a different way. Cyril reminds us, even in 2024, that we are made for a Promise –that is, eternal life– that they we are now just getting started. Cyril tells us that with Jesus Christ, Love incarnate, is here to redeem us.
As it is stated elsewhere, we should never think of Lent as a stand-alone season. When Lent is over it’s not really over; Lent is the preamble to a lifetime of reflection on Jesus, his Gospel and the sacred duties (Tradition) to which he calls each of us.
The importance of Cyril for us today is that he brings to the table the awareness that we are a people of a promise, of expectation and desire. The awareness is that of truly living, fully flourishing as human being. We are human beings where desire, expectation, promise give us the power, the stimulus to move ourselves forward out a negativity or a nihilism to truth and life. He makes me look at myself with wonder.
As move closer to the intensity of Holy Week we begin to refocus our spiritual eyes and hearts on what it means to be people of great, and holy desire by attending to the work the Lord has done for us. We are indeed people who thirst. We are people who desire to be in friendship with the Lord of Life who alone satisfies the needs of our hearts. The following portion of the Letter of the great bishop Athanasius iterates what we need, who we are, and what we are doing.
Watch your back today. You just never know where your enemies lurk and what’s in their hands.
In the liturgy of St John Chrysostom, the Cherubic Hymn (“We who mystically represent the Cherubim”) shows the icon of the angelic ministry of adoration and of prayer in man. It is also the moment where the angelic hosts join the liturgical celebration. Man is associated with their song first in the Trisagion (“Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal”) and then the Sanctus resumes the theme of the Anaphora, the eucharistic praise of the Trinity. Men and angels are united in the same élan of adoration (“Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth. Heaven and earth are full of Thy Glory”). The content of the age to come, “full of glory,” begins already on earth.
Today I spent a little time with the laying hens. Typically, Fridays I give food scraps to the hens from the monastery kitchen which effectively utilizes the food stuff and enriches the diet of the hens. In return, we get good chicken manure for the pastures and nutrient dense, pastured eggs. The chickens get fresh air, sunshine, exercise, and lots of human contact.
Today is the feast of the fascinating Saint Peter Damian, monk, theologian, bishop and doctor of the Church. He was a reluctant abbot of his community; by 1057 Stephen IX twisted Peter’s arm hard enough for him to give up his monastic desert and made him Cardinal-bishop of Ostia. Never could Peter give up church governance.