Today on the feast of Saint Cornelius and Saint Cyprian, we have this powerful reminder about our faith in the first reading. Paul reminds Timothy: “Do not neglect the gift you have. […] Be diligent in these matters, be absorbed in them.” That’s the thing about our Catholic heritage. In essence, at the very root of all the things we do and teach is the heart and soul of a living, breathing God, yearning for us. Longing to help us to share in His divine life. What a gift indeed! When confronted with the purity of love itself, we should be absorbed in it. Our thoughts should be drifting like a young lover toward the memories of the one we are enamored with. A gift is freely given to us, even though we do not deserve it! We can never earn it. Only accept it and apply it to our lives.
The Gospel shows a woman absorbed in that gift. She does something astounding, stepping out of the role that society had assigned her. Bringing in her most valuable physical possession, she anoints the feet of the Messiah and washes them with her tears. Tears of joy flow from the center of her being at the knowledge that she has been forgiven and accepted. Freedom from sin results in her no longer caring about the value of the ointment because who she has in front of her is more precious to her than anything else ever could be or would be again. “Do not neglect this gift.” Right in front of us is Christ in the Eucharist, and we too get to touch Him, to receive Him into our bodies and let Him begin to grow that divine life inside us.
Saint Cornelius and Cyprian understood that truth. They fought for the people who had abandoned their faith during persecution. They sought a way for them to be restored to the unity of the Church. They wanted them to become one with the Community again. There was a serious debate between the bishops at the time about this. An enemy had come along and demanded they reject Jesus and their faith or die, and many of them chose to deny their faith. Many of the bishops felt that they should never be allowed back into the faith. Cornelius and Cyprian fought for them to have the opportunity again to be forgiven, to be able to come back to our Lord and Savior like the woman from our reading today. With tears of thanksgiving, simply place ourselves at His mercy and at His feet.
With the help of the Holy Spirit, they convinced the rest of the Church that we should forgive those who were weak during persecution and admit them back into communion with the Church. Cyprian, whose writings are seen as almost as significant as Saint Augustine’s, is one of the African Church Fathers. He reminds us again just how important this gift is to us.
In “The Unity of the Catholic Church,” St. Cyprian writes, “You cannot have God for your Father if you do not have the Church for your mother… God is one, and Christ is one, and his Church is one; one is the faith, and one is the people cemented together by harmony into the strong unity of a body… If we are the heirs of Christ, let us abide in the peace of Christ; if we are the sons of God, let us be lovers of peace.”
Let us never forget that as we come forward to receive the Eucharist, our hearts should be like the woman with the ointment. We should be overwhelmed at what God has done for us. The old is being made new, the mortal being brought into the divine life; our fallen human nature is transformed by Christ Himself. Let us never neglect that. Let our love for Christ absorb us. Not just here, but throughout the day, throughout our lives. People often look at someone who is madly in love and say, “look how happy she looks; he is good for her.” That’s what the peace of Christ should look like. So the question to meditate on today is: Do people ever look at us and say, “Wow, look how at peace they are. That faith of theirs… it’s good for them.”
That’s truly the root of all evangelization. We must let the love of Christ shine forth from us so that it leaves us glowing and makes people want to know what we have and how they can get it too. So the Church says to us again today: Do not neglect the gift you have. […] Be diligent in these matters, be absorbed in them.
A reflection on the readings for the Memorial of Saints Cornelius, Pope, and Saint Cyprian, Bishop, Martyrs: September 16th, 2021