The Heritage of Pilgrimage – Podcast
Dr. Italy, in this 14 minute podcast, discusses the central and constant role pi...
Dr. Italy, in this 14 minute podcast, discusses the central and constant role pi...
2 minute trailer for the new video Bible Study series from Ascension Press, Jesu...
Eight days after Easter, Thomas the Doubter has an encounter with the Risen Christ that makes him a believer and even more, an apostle or ambassador w...
Divine Mercy Sunday or the Octave of Easter presents us with one of the most famous of gospel stories -- the story of Doubting Thomas. But it shows us...
Easter is not a day but a season: the octave which is eight days of high celebration beginning on Easter Sunday followed by 42 more days of rejoicing...
Isn’t Advent great? Welcome to the season where the only song we sing for four weeks is O Come, O Come, Emmanuel! It’s the best! Advent is...
28 November, 2016Most Americans tend to think of religion as something rather fluid. It’s very common for us to say things like “all religions are basicall...
12 February, 2016Cyril, speaking to new Christians in Jerusalem around AD 360, explains why the Church is called catholic. The word “catholic” comes from the Greek word meaning “whole,” “entire,” or “all.” After explaining the meaning of catholic, Cyril goes on to explain the meaning of the term Church which comes from the Greek words meaning “those called out.”
The Church is called Catholic or universal because it has spread throughout the entire world, from one end of the earth to the other.
Again, it is called Catholic because it teaches fully and unfailingly all the doctrines which ought to be brought to men’s knowledge, whether concerned with visible or invisible things, with the realities of heaven or the things of earth.
Another reason for the name Catholic is that the Church brings under religious obedience all classes of men, rulers and subjects, learned and unlettered.
Finally, it deserves the title Catholic because it heals and cures unrestrictedly every type of sin that can be committed in soul or in body, and because it possesses within itself every kind of virtue that can be named, whether exercised in actions or in words or in some kind of spiritual charism.
It is most aptly called a church, which means an “assembly of those called out,” because it “calls out” all men and gathers them together, just as the Lord says in Leviticus: Assemble all the congregation at the door of the tent of meeting.
It is worth noting also that the word “assemble” is used for the first time in the Scriptures at this moment when the Lord appoints Aaron high priest. So in Deuteronomy God says to Moses: Assemble the people before me and let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me. There is a further mention of the assembly in the passage about the tablets of the Law: And on them were written all the words which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire, on the day of the assembly; it is as though he had said, even more clearly, “on the day when you were called out by God and gathered together.” So too the psalmist says: I will give thanks to you in the great assembly, O Lord; in the mighty throng I will praise you.
Long ago the psalmist sang: Bless God in the assembly; bless the Lord, you who are Israel’s sons. But now the Savior has built a second holy assembly, our Christian Church, from the Gentiles. It was of this that he spoke to Peter: On this rock I will build my Church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.
Now that the single church which was in Judea has been rejected, the churches of Christ are already multiplying throughout the world, and of them it is said in the psalms: Sing a new song to the Lord, let his praise be sung in the assembly of the saints.
Taking up the same theme the prophet says to the Jews: I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts; and immediately he adds: For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is glorified among the nations (Mal 1:11).
Of this holy Catholic Church Paul writes to Timothy: That you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.
This reading on the church catholic is an excerpt from St. Cyril of Jerusalem’s famous Jerusalem Catecheses (Cat. 18, 23-25: PG 33, 1043-1047). It explains why the Church is called “catholic.” It appears in the Roman Office of Readings for Wednesday of the 17th week in ordinary time.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem was born just about the time the Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire (313 AD) and was a boy when Queen Helena came to Jerusalem and erected the Church of the Holy Sepulchre over the site of Golgotha and the empty tomb. This church became Cyril’s cathedral when he became bishop of the Holy City of about 349AD. St. Cyril was banished from his Jerusalem see a total of three times for his bold proclamation of faith in Christ’s full divinity during a time when many bishops and emperors favored various forms of the Arian heresy. Saint Cyril of Jerusalem is one of the most important sources we have for how the church celebrated the liturgy and sacraments during the first few decades after the legalization of Christianity. In his famous 24 lectures commonly known as the Jerusalem Catecheses, Saint Cyril instructs new Christians in the days immediately before and after their initiation into the life of the Church at the Easter Vigil. In these catechetical instructions, which are the only documents that survive by St. Cyril, we find very strong insistence on the value and efficacy of the sacrament of baptism as well as heavy emphasis on the real presence of Christ’s body and blood in the sacrament of the Eucharist. St. Cyril of Jerusalem is considered to be one of the Early Church Fathers and is also reckoned among the number of the Doctors of the Catholic Church. He attended the First Council of Constantinople which completed the Creed commonly known as the Nicene Creed, and died in 386, just five years afterwards. Biography by Dr. Italy
No Comments