Coptic Orthodox Answers

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.

My beloved, welcome to the second part of our fourth lecture on our deep dive into the understanding of the Eucharist through the mindset and through the mind and teaching of St. Cyril of Alexandria. In this lecture, what we've been discussing is the subject of corruptibility. And so, so far, we've had the discussion regarding humanity's state of corruption and what it has done to us and how it is that we've inherited corruption and death. Today, in this second part of the fourth lecture, we will be speaking specifically as to the point of how the Eucharist is really a means of healing to the state of corruption that we are in. Let's go ahead and deep dive together.

And so the great I Am, the Being, He blesses our nature. He takes on humanity and He blesses it by putting it onto Himself by taking it as if it were His own and this is what we read, or this is what we pray rather, in the liturgy of St. Gregory. Again, in the Coptic Orthodox Church, according to our liturgical rites, the prayers of the liturgy of St. Gregory the Theologian are very, very beautiful, especially in this passage which we're about to read that is found in the segment of the liturgy right after we pray Holy, Holy, Holy. We say the following:

''O You, The Being throughout all time...'' (Liturgy of St. Gregory the Theologian, Holy, Holy, Holy)

And it's beautiful how he says it: You are... You are always the I Am. You are always the Being throughout all time. He is the one who was, who is, and who will always be. He is the Being.

''O You, The Being throughout all time, have come to us on earth. You have come into the womb of the Virgin. You, the Infinite, being God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but [You] emptied Yourself and took the form of a servant, and [You] blessed my nature in Yourself, and [You] fulfilled Your Law on my behalf.'' (Liturgy of St. Gregory the Theologian, Holy, Holy, Holy)

What does it mean to say that He blessed my nature in Himself? That means He took on human nature, this human nature which inherited corruption and death, and in so doing, He blesses it, He restores it, He heals it so that when I participate in it now by the grace of the Holy Spirit, when I participate in it now through the mysteries of the Church, and specifically the blessed and most honoured mystery of the Eucharist, I now have a chance to participate in that nature that He has blessed.

So my beloved, what we are seeing here is this idea of corruption and incorruption can only be understood as the bringing ourselves back to what He created us to be. This is why, in the liturgy of St. Basil and the prayer of reconciliation, the priest or the bishop who is presiding over the liturgy will say: O God, the Great, the Eternal who formed man in incorruption. You created us to be incorrupt. You created us to stay in that state of beauty and of purity and of life eternally.

But when death entered into the world through the envy of the devil, this is what destroyed everything. This is what made us go from incorruption to corruption. And it took the Lord Jesus Christ... it took Him taking on our nature in order for us to be able to now have our nature be purified, be blessed, be restored back to what it was. And so, Him who is the Being, the great I Am blesses human nature. And now He allows us to maintain this level of blessedness to participate in this new nature that he wants us to have or restore us back to the original nature that he wants us to hold on to through the Eucharist. And this is beautifully explained by St. Cyril in the passage of John, chapter 6, where he speaks of the bread of life. So the break of life, it prevents this death and decay; it prevents this corruption. So St. Cyril says:

''As our bread [human bread], which is taken from the earth, does not allow the weak nature of the flesh to decay, so also He, through the operation of the Spirit, gives life to the spirit, and not only that, but he preserves the body itself in incorruption.'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John, Volume 1)

What does that mean? I want you to imagine regular food and drink. Today, we eat regular bread and we drink regular water and in so doing, it keeps the human being alive. As long as we continue to eat worldly and temporal bread, it gives us the energy to keep our being alive physically, physically only. It prevents decay in that way. Imagine how much more now, St. Cyril is saying, when we eat of the heavenly bread, the body and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. When we feast on the flesh of our Saviour, not only does it keep our bodies alive and gives us that energy, but it can now keep us in a state where the human being and his soul can live on forever in immortality and brings us to a state of complete incorruption. And this is what he's trying to tell us. If you have or if you prevent decay and further corruption to your body by eating regular food, how much more does the bread of life give us this!

But he doesn't stop there. He continues to explain and say what the Lord Jesus Christ said: I am the bread of life. He says:

''''I am the bread of life'', not bodily bread, which puts an end only to suffering from hunger and frees the flesh from perishing of it; rather, I remold the whole living being completely unto eternal life and render humanity, which was created to exist forever, superior to death.'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John, Volume 1)

My beloved, these are very powerful words! St. Cyril is teaching us here that His purpose is not just to satisfy our bodily hunger, no! The purpose of feasting on the bread of life, which is the flesh of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ, is to remold... to remold! To take us and to renew us completely, to remold the whole living being completely unto eternal life and to render humanity, which was created to exist forever, superior to death. He wants to make us stronger than death. He wants us to conquer death with Him, through Him and in Him the same way that the Church celebrates the feast of the resurrection by saying what? Xριστóς ανέστη εκ νεκρόν, θάνατο θάνατον (Hristós anésti ek nekrón, thánato thánaton), Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death. And so, if we participate in Him who conquered death, then He can render us, He can render humanity superior to death through the participation of His life. And how do we participate in His life? Through the Eucharist by taking into ourselves all that He is.

So, my beloved, the Eucharist now is the means of healing. The Eucharist is the antidote; it's the medicine of life. So St. Cyril, he speaks of this again in his commentary. He says... he's speaking about how it is that the Lord Jesus Christ healed the son, the dead son... not healed, forgive me... He raised from the dead the son of the widow. And how does he do this? By touching. He not only raises him through His words but He also touches him. And so, St. Cyril comments on this and he says: pay attention to how His physical body has the life- giving gift in it. So he says:

''He touches the dead [which is the son of the widow] and through his body places life into those who have already succumbed to decay....'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John, Volume 1)

The body of that young man who had died was already decaying. Death had already taken over. He had already been dead now for a while and now they have already placed him in his wrapping cloths. They're already... they're already doing the procession of him in the streets. And so he's already suffering and he's succumbed to the decay of death. But he says what?

''He touches the dead and through his body [he] places life into those who have already succumbed to decay [He can place life into those that were already corrupt. He can place life into those that are already suffering the consequences of death]. And if through the mere touch of his holy flesh he gives life to that which has decayed, how will we not gain (...) life-giving blessing more richly when we also taste the blessing? [the blessing here being the Eucharist]'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John, Volume 1)

How will we not also have life pour into us and that life that is poured into us destroy that corrupted nature and bring us back to a state where we are alive and there is no corruption, there is no more decay? So St. Cyril is teaching us and telling us, if we really believe that the Eucharist belongs to our Lord Jesus Christ, that this is truly His body, this is truly His blood, this is truly what He has made His own, then surely we will believe that the Eucharist is life-

giving and that it is the very medicine to bring us from a state of corruption to a state of incorruption.

And so here, what St. Cyril begins to teach is that what the Lord promises us is incorruption, a state of being where we no longer are conquered by death, where we are in a state... where we are preserved in purity, in righteousness, in life, in immortality. So St. Cyril says what? He says:

''What then is Christ promising? Nothing corruptible; [He's not promising a state of corruption, no, on the contrary!] rather [he says], he is promising that blessing in the participation of his holy body and blood, which raise a person completely to incorruptibility so that they need none of the provisions that drive away the death of the flesh.'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John, Volume 1)

So what is His promise to us? He is promising the blessing, the Eucharistic blessing of participating in His holy body and blood, which now bring us to incorruption. There's so much beauty in understanding the power and the depth of what the purpose of the Eucharist is! It is not merely a tradition that we do over and over again, no! It is the very medicine of life that restores us. So when I am afflicted by the consequences of death spiritually, in sin, in addiction, when I'm in need of this healing power for my soul, the Eucharist becomes that which gives me Christ Himself within me, which restores me.

So if I... like that son of the widow, which was dead, which was completely dead and wrapped up and they were ready to bury me... if I allow for the Eucharist and I have faith that the Eucharist is truly the life-giving body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, imagine what it can do to me, how it can completely heal my state of corruption!

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