VATICAN - The integral catechesis of Saint Cyril “involving body, soul and spirit, is still today emblematic for the catechetical formation of Christians ”: Pope Benedict XVI's address at the general audience

Thursday, 28 June 2007

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - Yesterday 27 June once again Pope Benedict XVI divided his Wednesday audience (his 100th audience) in two parts. In St Peter's Basilica, addressing visitors from various parts of the world the Pope spoke about Saints Peter and Paul whose feast day is June 29: “May their example and their continual protection- the Pope said in Italian - sustain you in your efforts to follow Christ and bear witness in your life to faithful and courageous fidelity to his teaching".
In the Paul VI Audience Hall the Pope addressed another six thousand visitors and he spoke about the figure of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem born around the year 315.
“His life - the Pope said - represents an interweaving of two dimensions: on the one hand pastoral care and on the other, involvement- unwillingly - in heated arguments which travailed the Church of the East at that time… Cyril was given an excellent literary education; this was the basis of his ecclesiastical culture, centred on the study of the Bible. Ordained a priest by Bishop Maximus, when the latter died or was deposed in 348, he was ordained a bishop by Acacio, influential metropolitan of Cesarea of Palestine, pro-Arian, convinced to have in him an ally”. Cyril soon clashed with Acacio on doctrinal and jurisdictional grounds and so experienced exile three times over a period of 20 years. Only in 378 he regained possession of his see restoring unity and peace among the faithful. He died in 387. His orthodoxy was questioned but in a letter to the Roman Pontiff the Eastern Bishops officially recognised Cyril's absolute orthodoxy, the legitimacy of his ordination as a bishop and the merits of his pastoral service.
“Of Cyril we have twenty four famous catechesis which he exposed as a Bishop about the year 350” the Holy Father said. Addressed to catechumens, they treat of the Sacrament of Baptism, the dogmatic truths contained in the Creed, the Symbol of the Faith, the Symbol of Jerusalem, while the last five, referred to as "mystagogic", comment the rites of Baptism, they concern the oil of chrism, the Body and Blood of Christ and the eucharistic liturgy. “Included is the explanation of the Our Father (Oratio Dominica): it is the foundation of a path of initiation to prayer which develops parallel to initiation to the three sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist.”
“Catechesis was an important moment- the Holy Father recalled -, inserted in the context of the life, especially liturgical, of the Christian community, in whose maternal womb accompanied by the prayer and witness of the brothers and sisters the future Christian developed. As a whole Cyril's homilies constitute a systematic catechesis on the Christian's re-birth through Baptism”.
The Pope dwelt on the characteristics of the catechesis and continued: “From the doctrinal point of view, Cyril comments the Symbol of Jerusalem with recourse to the typology of the Scriptures, in a 'symphonic' relationship between the Old and New Testaments, down to Christ, centre of the universe… with regard to moral catechesis, this is anchored in profound unity with doctrinal catechesis: dogma is gradually instilled into the souls who are thus prompted to transform their pagan behaviour on the basis of new life in Christ, gift of Baptism. Lastly mystagogic catechesis, marked the apex of the instruction which Cyril gave not to catechumens but to the newly baptised or 'neophytes' during Easter week, leading them to discover, in baptismal rites of the Easter Vigil, the mysteries contained therein and not yet revealed. Illuminated by the light of a faith deepened by Baptism, the neophytes were at last able to understand these mysteries.”
At the end of his discourse the Holy Father underlined that “the catechesis of Cyril, on the basis of the three mentioned components- doctrinal, moral and then mystagogic -, is a global catechesis in the Spirit. The mystagogic dimension actuates the synthesis of the first two orienting them towards the sacramental celebration in which the salvation of the whole person is accomplished. It is an integral catechesis which, involving body, soul and spirit, still today is emblematic for the catechetical formation of Christians.” (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 28/6/2007 - righe 51, parole 701)


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