Tuesday, November 5 : Saint Cyprian

Brethren, who then is so profane and lacking in faith, who so insane by the fury of discord as either to believe that the unity of God, the garment of the Lord, the Church of Christ, can be torn asunder or to dare to do so? (Jn 19,24). He himself warns us in his Gospel, and teaches saying: “And there I shall be one flock and one shepherd” (Jn 10,16). And does anyone think that there can be either many shepherds or many flocks in one place? Likewise the Apostle Paul insinuating this same unity upon us beseeches and urges us in these words: “I beseech you, brethren,” he says, “by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all say the same thing; that there be no dissensions among you but that you be perfectly united in the same mind and in the same judgement” (1Cor 1,10). And again he says: “Bearing with one another in love, careful to preserve the unity of the Spirit, in the bond peace” (Eph 4,2-3). Do you think that you can stand and live, withdrawing from the Church, and building for yourself other abodes and different dwellings?… When the sacrament of the Passover contains nothing else in the law of the Exodus than that the lamb, which is slain in the figure of Christ, be eaten in one house? God speaks, saying: “In one house it shall be eaten, you shall not carry the flesh outside the house” (Ex 12,46). The flesh of Christ and the holy of the Lord cannot be carried outside, and there is no other house for believers except the one Church. This house, this hospice of unanimity, the Holy Spirit designates and proclaims, when he says: “God who makes those of one mind to dwell in his house” (cf. Ps 86[87],7). In the house of God, in the Church of Christ, those of mind dwell; they persevere in peace and simplicity.
maronite readings – rosary,team