What's Up Doc? - St. Cyril of Jerusalem Edition

Today is the day the Church celebrates (when it doesn't fall on a Sunday) the feast of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. St. Cyril is 1 of only 33 people that have been declared a Doctor of the Church. St Cyril is also considered 1 of the post-Apostolic Fathers of the Church.

St Cyril was born c. 315 AD. He was ordained a deacon about 335 AD & a priest about 10 years later. He was made Bishop of Jerusalem about 346-350 AD. He died in 386 AD. He was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1883 by Pope Leo XIII.

He was a strong opponant of the Arian heresy & as a result of that opposition he was forced into exile 3 times during hs time as Bishop. He participated in the 1st Council of Constantinople in 381 AD (2nd Ecumenical Council). This Council upheld the condemnation of Arianism at the previous Council at Nicaea & condemned 2 other hesesies as well. 1 of the other condemned heresies denied the Divinity of the Holy Spirit.

St. Cyril is most remembered for his Catechetical Lectures, a series of 23 teachings on the basics of the Catholic faith.. These series of lectures include Five Catechetical Lectures to the Newly Baptized (19-23). Lecture 22, On the Body and Blood of Christ, is a strong affirmation of the Catholic Church's teaching of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. Here are a couple of key passages from that lecture:

"I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, how that the Lord Jesus, in the night in which He was betrayed, took bread, &c. 1 Cor. XI. 23

1. Even of itself1 the teaching of the Blessed Paul is sufficient to give you a full assurance concerning those Divine Mysteries, of which having been deemed worthy, ye are become of the same bad2 and blood with Christ. For you have just heard him say distinctly, That our Lord Jesus Christ in the night in which He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks He brake it, and gave to His disciples, saying, Take, eat, this is My Body: and having taken the cup and given thanks, lie said, Take, drink, this is My Blood3 . Since then He Himself declared and said of the Bread, This is My Body, who shall dare to doubt any longer? And since He has Himself affirmed and said, This is My Blood, who shall ever hesitate, saying, that it is not His blood?

9. Having learn these things, and been fully assured that the seeming bread is not bread, though sensible to taste, but the Body of Christ; and that the seeming wine is not wine, though the taste will have it so, but the Blood of Christ24 ; and that of this David sung of old, saying, And bread strengtheneth man's heart, to make his face to shine with oil25 , "strengthen thou thine heart," by partaking thereof as spiritual, and "make the face of thy soul to shine." And so having it unveiled with a pure conscience, mayest thou reflect as a mirror the glory of the Lord26 , and proceed from glory to glory, in Christ Jesus our Lord:-To whom be honour, and might, and glory, for ever and ever. Amen. "

St. Cyril Bio at EWTN (from Butler's Lives of the Saints)