Sunday, September 1 : Saint Cyril of Alexandria

Even in raising people from the dead, the Savior is not content with acting solely by means of his word, although it is the bearer of divine commands. If I might put it this way, he takes his own flesh as collaborator in this magnificent work, so as to show that it has the power to give life and to make visible that it is entirely one with him. For it is really his own flesh and not a foreign body. That is what happened when he raised the synagogue official’s daughter. When he told her: “My child, get up!” he took her by the hand. As God, he gave her life through an almighty commandment, and he also gave her life through the contact with his holy flesh, thus testifying that one single divine power was at work in his body and in his word. In the same way again, when he came to the village of Naim where they were burying the only son of a widow, he touched the coffin saying: “Young man, I bid you get up.” (Lk 7:13-17) Thus, he not only gives his word the power to raise the dead, but in order to show that his body is life-giving, he also touches the dead, and by his flesh he causes life to pass into their dead bodies. If the simple contact with his sacred flesh gives back life to a body that is decomposing, how great a profit will we find in his life-giving eucharist, when we make it our food? It will totally transform those who will have taken part in it into what is his own, that is to say, into immortality.

Roman Extraordinary (Tridentine) Daily Readings – rosary,team