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Office Of Readings | Eastertide Week 4, Saturday | A Reading From The Commentary Of Saint Cyril Of Alexandria On The Letter To The Romans | All Are Saved Through Jesus | Opus Dei | Body Of Jesus Christ
‘God’s mercy reaches all men, and the whole world is saved.’
God’s Mercy Has Been Extended to All
This reflection, drawn from Saint Cyril of Alexandria’s commentary on the Letter to the Romans, richly develops the theological significance of unity, divine mercy, and the universality of salvation. The passage resonates deeply with themes central to Eastertide: renewal, reconciliation, and the triumph of divine love through the risen Christ. St Cyril, a towering figure in patristic theology and a staunch defender of orthodoxy at the Council of Ephesus, here offers a profound meditation on the body of Christ and the universal scope of redemption.
Unity In Jesus Christ | One Body From Many Members
Cyril opens with the Pauline image of the Church as the one body of Christ, comprised of many members (cf. Romans 12:4-5; 1 Corinthians 12:12). This ecclesial vision emphasises interdependence and mutual charity. The metaphor serves a dual function: it grounds Christian identity in relationality and reflects the Church’s calling to be a visible sign of unity amidst diversity. In Eastertide, this vision is especially poignant, as the risen Christ breathes peace upon his disciples and sends them forth as one body into a fragmented world.
Cyril underscores that this unity is not merely human cooperation, but something wrought by Christ himself: ‘Christ has made Jews and Gentiles one by breaking down the barrier that divided us.’ This directly evokes Ephesians 2:14, where Paul declares that Christ ‘is our peace’, having broken down the ‘dividing wall of hostility’. Cyril, writing in a context where the Church was consolidating its self-understanding post-Constantine and in the face of lingering sectarianism, insists on the supernatural foundation of unity. The Church is not a sociological club, but the mystical Body of Christ, reconciled through his flesh.
Mutual Responsibility And The Spirit Of Communion
‘If one member suffers some misfortune, all should suffer with him; if one member is honoured, all should be glad.’ This is a pastoral exhortation to lived solidarity, echoing Paul (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:26). In Cyril’s Christology, the Incarnation is not merely the descent of God into flesh, but the enfleshment of divine compassion. The Church, as the prolongation of Christ’s body in history, is called to embody that same compassion.
Here, Cyril aligns with the deep patristic intuition that salvation is not only individual but corporate. Unity is both gift and task. In our contemporary context of ecclesial fragmentation and social polarization, this ancient voice calls for a renewal of mutual empathy and shared mission.
Divine Mercy As The Basis Of Unity
Cyril’s reflection on the mercy of God is rooted in the Johannine proclamation: ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.’ (John 3:16) He interprets this as both the source and the model of ecclesial communion. God accepted us in Christ—not conditionally, but freely, graciously, and universally. This acceptance becomes the blueprint for how Christians are to accept one another: ‘Accept one another as Christ accepted you, for the glory of God.’ (Romans 15:7)
By pointing to the divine initiative—’He has delivered us from death, redeemed us from death and from sin’—Cyril reinforces that unity and salvation are not human accomplishments but divine gifts. In this way, the theology of mercy becomes ecclesiology. The Church exists as the fruit and sign of God’s limitless compassion.
Christ As Servant And Fulfilment Of The Promise
Cyril skilfully weaves together Paul’s insights into Christ’s dual mission: to Israel and to the nations.
- Christ became a ‘servant of the circumcised’ to demonstrate God’s faithfulness to the patriarchal promises.
- Yet he also comes as the Redeemer of the Gentiles, expanding the covenant to the ends of the earth.
This twofold mission reflects the mystery of God’s plan (cf. Romans 15:8-9). It speaks to the continuity between the Old and New Testaments, showing that God’s mercy is not a new invention but the flowering of ancient fidelity. Cyril, steeped in the Alexandrian exegetical tradition, sees the Incarnation not as rupture but as fulfilment.
In contemporary theological discourse, this reinforces the importance of honouring the Jewish roots of the Christian faith while affirming the universal scope of salvation. It also supports a mission-centred ecclesiology, where evangelization is understood not as conquest but as participation in God’s ongoing work of reconciliation.
Mystery Of Salvation | God’s Wisdom And The Church
Cyril concludes with a meditation on the ‘mystery of the divine wisdom contained in Christ’, emphasizing that God’s salvific plan has not failed but triumphed. He notes that ‘in the place of those who fell away the whole world has been saved’.
This statement may refer to Paul’s teaching in Romans 11, where the failure of some within Israel to accept Christ becomes the occasion for the Gospel to go to the Gentiles. It is not a theology of replacement but of expansion and divine economy: what appears as failure in human eyes becomes the occasion for greater mercy.
Cyril’s affirmation that the ‘whole world has been saved’ must be understood in the context of universal availability of salvation, not automatic universalism. It reflects the Church’s Easter proclamation: that Christ’s victory over death is for all humanity, and that all are invited into the covenant of life.
Glossary of Terms
- Gentiles: A biblical term referring to all people who are not Jewish. In the New Testament context, Gentiles are those who were not part of the original covenant with Israel but are now included in salvation through Christ.
- Circumcised / Circumcision: In the Jewish tradition, circumcision is a physical sign of the covenant between God and Abraham. ‘The circumcised’ refers to Jewish people. Paul uses this term to speak of those under the old covenant.
- Divine Word: A title for Jesus Christ, especially in the Gospel of John, where He is identified as the eternal Word (Greek: Logos) who became flesh.
- Ransom: A theological term describing Jesus’ sacrificial death. It refers to the price paid to redeem or liberate humanity from sin and death.
- Patriarchs: The founding fathers of the Jewish people, particularly Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God’s promises to them are seen as foundational to the story of salvation.
- The Law with its Precepts and Decrees: Refers to the Mosaic Law (Torah), including commandments and religious regulations given to Israel. According to Christian teaching, Jesus fulfilled and surpassed this law.
- Mystery of the Divine Wisdom: A phrase used by Paul and the early Church to describe God’s hidden plan for salvation, now revealed in Christ and extended to all peoples.
- One Body in Christ: A metaphor used by Paul to describe the unity of believers in the Church, where all members, though different, are united in Christ like parts of a single body.
- Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace: A phrase from Ephesians 4:3 highlighting the spiritual unity among Christians, maintained through love, peace, and shared faith.
- Salvation: Deliverance from sin and death, made possible through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
- House of Israel: A biblical term referring to the Jewish people, the descendants of Jacob (also called Israel), to whom God’s original covenant was given.
- Redeemer: A title for Christ, highlighting His role in saving humanity from sin and restoring the relationship between God and man.
A Reading From The Commentary Of Saint Cyril Of Alexandria On The Letter To The Romans | All Are Saved Through Jesus
Though many, we are one body, and members one of another, united by Christ in the bonds of love. Christ has made Jews and Gentiles one by breaking down the barrier that divided us and abolishing the law with its precepts and decrees. This is why we should all be of one mind and if one member suffers some misfortune, all should suffer with him; if one member is honoured, all should be glad.
Paul says: Accept one another as Christ accepted you, for the glory of God. Now accepting one another means being willing to share one another’s thoughts and feelings, bearing one another’s burdens, and preserving the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. This is how God accepted us in Christ, for John’s testimony is true and he said that God the Father loved the world so much that he gave his own Son for us. God’s Son was given as a ransom for the lives of us all. He has delivered us from death, redeemed us from death and from sin.
Paul throws light on the purpose of God’s plan when he says that Christ became the servant of the circumcised to show God’s fidelity. God had promised the Jewish patriarchs that he would bless their offspring and make it as numerous as the stars of heaven. This is why the divine Word himself, who as God holds all creation in being and is the source of its well-being, appeared in the flesh and became man. He came into this world in human flesh not to be served, but, as he himself said, to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Christ declared that his coming in visible form was to fulfil the promise made to Israel. I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, he said. Paul was perfectly correct, then, in saying that Christ became a servant of the circumcised in order to fulfil the promise made to the patriarchs and that God the Father had charged him with this task, as also with the task of bringing salvation to the Gentiles, so that they too might praise their Saviour and Redeemer as the Creator of the universe. In this way God’s mercy has been extended to all men, including the Gentiles, and it can be seen that the mystery of the divine wisdom contained in Christ has not failed in its benevolent purpose. In the place of those who fell away the whole world has been saved.
Psalm 39 is a contemplative reflection on the fleeting nature of human existence. Attributed to King David, this psalm delves into themes of silence, self-control, and brevity of life in face of God’s eternal nature [ … ]
‘Death,’ says His Grace, ‘throws it all apart. For we are not as we should be. Faith requires our adjustment to God’s truth. God’s triumph in a very real sense requires in us the loss of our everything. Which, as with Mary at the other end of Jesus’s life, is God’s truth.’ The Gospel reading is of John 11: 1-45, which is a long passage, and His Grace’s homiletic theme commences in textual wilderness. Our brokenness – in this place – a family home. Our faith, our doubt, our death… The irruption – death, doubt, fear – within our precious scenes and our most intimate places. Our domesticity. His Grace speaks from the chair, as is a bishop’s prerogative, and says: ‘So much is obscure in the Gospels. We’re always reaching through them. We’re never there. Really, we never are. Our knowledge, our understanding, of the Gospels is never complete, and with each reading comes a new revelation. There are always new riches there. Just as there are between all of us, between myself and you. The Gospels are living texts. This is a part of the conversation we have with our own Christianity. It is a part of who we are in our relationship with Jesus. We are in this sense always on the brink. ‘So yes, there is plenty that doesn’t seem to make sense. As one of the order of bishops, we would be lying if we said that weren’t the case. They are not easy texts to encounter, if by that word we may signify something more than a superficial glancing off against, but rather a profound search for the word of God. The Gospels are written by people who had their own ideas, and often didn’t know what had really happened. Luke is quite explicit on this point. His is an investigation, from the explicitly claimed point of view of an historian, rather than that of a first-hand witness, who attempts, so he says, to set out an orderly account, out of the chaos, the sheer muddle, that has been handed down to him. It is possible to imagine Luke researching and composing his account after many years, when there has arisen a desire to know what exactly happened, and this implies a certain call to faith and certain demands of historicity, to historical exactitude. So in these different ways, the people of the first years of Christian faith are in the dark. There is also a decisive need to define the life of Jesus. And people didn’t get Jesus. The whole meaning of Christianity is only now beginning to take root throughout the composition. So much needs to be evangelized. The light shines almost in tentative fashion like that first star, which drew the wise men from the east to our Lord’s cradle. ‘John’s is widely held to be a very late Gospel. There are others who say that John’s Gospel might have been the first to acquire its true shape, because it most fully expresses Jesus, as we know him to be, as members of the Catholic Church. We don’t really know when any of this is being written, but we get a feel in John of a Gospel refined over many years, through a community. So there’s a lot going on there that I’d like you to think about. ‘What I would like to suggest to you is that, while within the Gospels we are often confronted with clues, guesswork, stories that have been handed down through so many people, and so in this sense we might find ourselves to be in the wilderness, this is the very desolate space itself to which we must give ourselves in order to experience Christ’s full redemption in our lives. I suggest it is for God’s glory that we do so. ‘As we become aware of ourselves, in this seminary, we find ourselves in a very secure, comfortable setting, and there are signs of Easter everywhere. Within the very fabric of these buildings, our Lord is risen; our Lord lives. But now this is our Lenten journey, where death enters, where death breaks us. We are to ride into Jerusalem in triumph, and then we are to be utterly broken, all hope gone, our hope extinguished. And really, I suggest to you, it is only by inhabiting this thought, as if we don’t know Easter is there, that our new life can follow, just when we have given up all hope, when every promise that Jesus made to us seems to have been cancelled. ‘And here now we have the story of Lazarus. I should like to suggest to you that we have a very powerful call now. In our very comfortable space, our domesticity, with all this comfort, where so very little might seem to happen each day, so it might seem to you, there is a disturbance within all of this comfort, and that is a disturbance within ourselves, and that is our call to Jesus. I think it is correct to say that our most comfortable places break in the light of Jesus from the inside, in order that we may take the necessary steps to be with Jesus. ‘Faith is not comfortable. I think that we can all receive the message of the rolling away of the rock from the tomb of Lazarus to say something of vital importance to ourselves concerning our openness to God’s love. The rock we roll away can come in all sorts of guises, but we know when we are blocked, and I firmly believe if we are truthful then we know where those blocks might be. ‘Next Sunday, which will be Palm Sunday, we process as it were to Jerusalem, to begin our Holy Week. Now as I speak to you we are on the brink. Even now, I suggest it might be very good for all of us to lay aside what we think we know, to fall apart a little, and so […]
Saint Basil the Great’s homily, selected for Monday of the Third Week of Lent, meditates on the nature of true greatness and the proper orientation of human boasting. Saint Basil draws upon scriptural sources, particularly the writings of the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 9:23-24) and Saint Paul (1 Corinthians 1:30-31; Philippians 3:8-11), to underscore that human wisdom, strength, and wealth are fleeting and should not be the source of pride. Instead, true boasting lies in knowing and understanding the Lord [ … ]
