In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.
My beloved, welcome now to the sixth part of the series that we began just a little while ago on the topic of the Eucharist in the mindset of our father among the saints, Saint Cyril of Alexandria. Now, if you have been paying attention with us, we have come a long way. We have discussed quite a bit in trying to understand the Church's understanding and the Church's view on the Holy Eucharist and we decided to do this specifically through the life and teachings of Saint Cyril of Alexandria.
So, if you have been following along with us, you're aware of some of the steps we have taken together. We began by first talking about the human being and what the human being was called to be when God created him in His image and likeness and how the fall and our adoption of sin and our introduction of disobedience, death entered into the world and now the human condition of found to be corrupt and alienated and having inherited death.
We spoke about how the human being now was supposed to be in a state of incorruption, but rather, we inherited corruption. We spoke about how it is that the human being had the potential to be immortal, to choose the tree of life, to live in God who is life. And yet, the human being inherited death because of the sinful choices that we had made. And we also spoke about how it is that we were called to be in union with God. We were created to have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, but we have lost the Holy Spirit because of the introduction of sin and we have been alienated and separated from God.
And now the conversation has taken us to understand how the Eucharist is a necessity and a big part of the solution to how it is that the human being can be restored entirely, how the Eucharist takes us from a state of corruption to a state of incorruptibility, how the Eucharist takes us from death to a state where we receive life through the life-giving flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ. And by God's grace, seeing as how we discussed just last week the Eucharist as life-giving, this week, God willing, we'll be talking about how the Eucharist, specifically, is the means by which we can become reunited with the Lord God.
And so, the Eucharist is a source of union with God. We will talk about how we were created for union. We will speak about how it is that the Eucharist allows us to participate in Christ Jesus our Lord and we will speak, finally, about how it is that the Eucharist is the fulfillment of reconciliation and being reunited to the Lord our God. So, let's go ahead and dive right into this lecture number 6, this final lecture by God's grace.
So, let's begin with the idea of we were created for love and we were created to be loved. And Scripture makes this very clear, my beloved. From the Old Testament to the New Testament, the words of Christ and the teachings of the apostles, it is very, very clear to us that we were created for love and to be loved. And this is important, because you cannot speak of union and communion unless you speak of two who are in love, two beings who want to share themselves with each other. This is the true meaning of love: the offering of oneself to the other person, the wilful offering.
And so, here we see, in Song of Solomon's for instance, how it is that the narrative between the Shulamite woman and her beloved is a narrative that exists between every soul and her bridegroom, which is the Lord our God. And says in Song of Solomon, chapter 6, verse 3:
'' 3 I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine...'' (Song of Solomon 6:3)
There is this idea of we were made for each other. In Jeremiah, chapter 31, the Lord speaks through the prophet and He says:
'' 3 ''...I have loved you with an everlasting love...'' '' (Jeremiah 31:3)
This is coming from the heart of the Lord God who created us so that we can be His and He can offer Himself to us. And finally, in John, chapter 15, the Lord Jesus Christ says:
'' 9 ''As the Father loved Me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.'' '' (John 15:9) - [New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised]
And this is important, my beloved. The Lord Jesus is comparing the love between the persons of the Holy Trinity, the love between the Father and the Son; he's sayin: As the Father loved me, I have loved you. Imagine the beauty of that love. Imagine the intensity of that love. We were truly created for love and we were created to be loved. We were also created for union, because love and union, love and unity go hand in hand and so, here, created for union with the Lord God.
And this is made very clear in the words of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself in the garden of Gethsemane. In that garden, before He is betrayed and before He is handed over to the Sanhedrin and before He is falsely accused and judged and then eventually crucified on the cross, our Lord is praying. And in that conversation between God the Son and God the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ says the following:
'' 20 ''I ask not only on behalf of these [and here, He's speaking of the disciples; He says:] I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word...'' (John 17:20) - [New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised]
And who are those people who believed through their word? We are! We are those who receive the word of God, because of the work of the disciples and the apostles. So the Lord here is actually praying not only for His disciples, He's praying for all of us, for every soul who has received the good word of salvation through the spreading of the Gospel. So he says not only on behalf of those who will believe in me, but through their word:
21 ''...that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one...'' (John 17:21-23) - [New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised]
My beloved, this is a great mystery; it's a great and beautiful mystery. The Lord Christ is very clear. He says: As you, Father, are in me and I in you, may they also be in us. What does this mean? What does it mean that the Lord wants us to be one in Him the same way He is one in His Father?
We say that the Holy Trinity is three persons, one essence: truly, a divine mystery. The mystery of the doctrine of the Trinity is one that we will never be able to completely comprehend, but we approach it in faith. And now, the Lord is saying what? The same mystery of unity that exists between the persons of the Trinity, I want you to be one in us, in that same mysterious ways. He says very clearly: As I am one with you, oh Father, may they also be one in us. My beloved, this is truly a mystery and it's an incredible invitation! Nowhere else do we hear of any god, in any religion, saying that he wants to be one, he desires to be one with his beloved creation.
And so, He finishes by saying: so that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me. If we are one in Christ and the Father is one with Christ, then we are called to participate in the life of the All-Holy Trinity. My beloved, this is a unity and this is a calling that is beyond understanding and extremely deep. And this is why it's so important, because we were created for love and we were created for union, but we cannot forget what the fall has done. We cannot forget what sin and death has done.
In the words of St. Cyril, and we saw this earlier in another lecture, St. Cyril says:
''When the human race reached a great multitude and sin ruled over all of them, it thoroughly plundered the soul of each one, and nature was stripped of [its] original grace. [And] The Spirit also departed completely, and the rational creature fell into utter irrationality, not even recognizing the creator himself.'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John, Volume 1)
And so, the human being, here, lost the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We were stripped of our original grace, according to St. Cyril. So, because of the fall, union, now, became something
that we lost. We were alienated and separated from God. And so, now we need to be reunited and this restoration, this reconciliation can only happen if we introduce the possibility of union once again. So, St. Cyril, he speaks of this in his second volume in the commentary of St. John and he teaches the following; he says:
''It was impossible for us to be restored, once we had fallen because of the original transgression, back to our original beauty except by attaining an ineffable communion and union with God. [The only way we could be restored is if we had a way to go back to being in communion and union with God.] That is how the nature of those on earth was ordered in the beginning.'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John, Volume 2)
In the beginning, our nature was called to be in union, he says, so we need to go back to that, he says, and the only way for us to be restored from our fallen state is to go back to that original state where we can be reunited to God. Now, he says it beautifully:
''No one could have union with God except through participation in the Holy Spirit, who implants his own attribute of sanctification in us and refashions into his own life the nature that was subject to decay.'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John, Volume 2)
So, without the reception of the Holy Spirit, there is no hope for union. And this is made very clear through the teachings of St. Cyril of Alexandria. He also makes it even much more clear by saying that union is our ultimate objective. Union is the purpose of what it is that we live for. He says it very simply in his Commentary on the Gospel of John, Volume 1. He says:
''Now it is obvious to everyone that since our aim is intent of being united with God through Christ the mediator...'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John, Volume 1)
Our aim is what? On being united with God through Christ the mediator. It is very clear. We need to go back to being reunited. We need to be reconciled. We need to no longer be alienated. We need to come back into God's presence and allow ourself to be one with Him the way we were created to be. And he says this cannot happen unless we receive the Holy Spirit.
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