(Feast of St. Cyril of Alexandria-Year B; This homily was given on 27 June, 2012 at St. Sebastian's Church, Providence, R.I. See Matthew 7:15-20)
Are you needy? Do you
have needs? Of course you do. As human persons we all share some of the
most basic needs of life. We have an
innate need to be loved. Along with
that is the need to be forgiven, when we have failed God or those around us. At the heart of the matter and more to the
point: We need God. Desperately.
How glorious that He is so ready and willing to give us what
we need and long for most of all: Himself.
It is the story of our salvation writ large.
In the 5th Century there was an important and
greatly influential bishop named Nestorius who believed Jesus, like us, had
needs. Certainly he did not teach that
Jesus needed to be forgiven.
Nonetheless, Nestorius taught that Jesus was a human person who was joined to the Divine Person of the eternal Son of God. It seemed to make sense to him that this
human person would need to be joined to God and then suddenly have the power to perform
miracles, heal the sick, suffer for us on the cross and then lead us all to
heaven.
But Nestorius was wrong.
We do not believe that Jesus was a human person. Catholics do not believe that at all. In fact we believe that Jesus was a Divine Person
who took on our human nature, becoming like us in all things but sin (see
Hebrews 4:15 and Gaudium et Spes,
#22).
Why is that important?
Because believing and teaching the wrong thing about God can lead us
away from God, and away from heaven. The
word we use for such teaching is heresy, and Christ takes it very
seriously. The early Church condemned
the teaching of Nestorius because it was leading the people of God into error
and away from the true teachings revealed by God.
In the Gospel this morning Christ warns us all against such
things. He says:
Beware of false
prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but underneath are ravenous
wolves.
—Matthew 7:15
Jesus was not a human person who needed to be joined to God
to do powerful things. He is God who is
in need of nothing. Nonetheless He comes
to us and takes on our human nature to redeem us because we need Him.
At the same time that Nestorius was teaching heresy about
Christ, Bishop Cyril of nearby Alexandria—whose feast we celebrate today—was
defending the Catholic faith by insisting that Jesus was not a human person but
a Divine person who took on our human nature.
Even before He was born, while in the womb of the Virgin Mary, Jesus
Christ is a Divine person. He did not so
much need love because He is love; He did not need to be joined to God because
He is God; He is eternally united to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.
St. Cyril of Alexandria, along with the fathers of the
Council of Ephesus in 431, courageously proclaimed the Blessed Virgin Mary as Theotokos,
the God-Bearer. She carried in her body not merely the human
nature of Jesus of Nazareth but the Divine person who is the eternal Son of
God. Indeed, she needed Him more than He
needed her, since without Him she would not have existed. Such is the mysterious and great glory of our
Catholic faith.
God does not need anything or anyone. Yet He pines for us, longs for us, and greatly
desires each and every one of us. He becomes
man and takes on our human nature so that we can receive the greatest gift and
the most pressing need deep within our souls: Him.
With St. Cyril of Alexandria we thank God for so great a
gift, given to us here in the Holy Eucharist.
We receive here the Body and the Blood of Jesus Christ and pray for the grace
to be as attentive to the needs of others this day as God is to our needs every
day.
