Vatican Information Service has posted its summary of Pope Benedict’s audience on Cyril of Jerusalem.

VATICAN CITY, JUN 27, 2007 (VIS) – The Holy Father dedicated his catechesis during today’s general audience to St. Cyril of Jerusalem (ca. 315-387), whom he described as a bishop of a great “ecclesiastical culture, centered on the study of the Bible.” The general audience, Benedict XVI’s hundredth, began with his greeting pilgrims in St. Peter’s Basilica, then continued in the Paul VI Hall. It was attended by around 7,000 people.

Cyril, the Pope explained, was consecrated a bishop in 348 by Acacius, metropolitan of Caesarea in Palestine and a supporter of Arianism. However, soon afterwards the two men came into contrast, “not only in the doctrinal field, but also in the area of jurisprudence, because Cyril claimed the autonomy of his see from the metropolitan see of Caesarea.” He was exiled thee times and only in 378, following the death of the emperor Valens, could Cyril return to his see, “restoring unity and peace among the faithful.” Of this saint we have his “Catecheses,” 24 catechetical lectures introduced by a prologue.

“Catechesis,” the Holy Father explained, “was an important moment, inserted into the broad context of the entire life – and especially the liturgical life – of the Christian community” where “the future faithful were gestated, accompanied by the prayer and witness of their brethren. This was a very important moment, it was not just an intellectual catechesis, but a way of learning to live in the Christian community. As a whole, Cyril’s homilies constitute a systematic and pragmatic catechesis on the rebirth of Christians through Baptism.”

From a doctrinal point of view, Cyril uses his work – through “a ‘symphonic’ relationship between the two Testaments” – to reach “Christ, center of the universe.” In his moral catechesis, he invites people “to transform pagan forms of behavior on the basis of the new life in Christ.” In his “mystagogic” catechesis, he brings the newly baptized “to discover the hidden mysteries … contained in the baptismal rites.”

“The mystery to be understood is the design of God which is accomplished through the salvific action of Christ in the Church. The mystagogic dimension is, in turn, accompanied by the dimension of symbols which express the spiritual experience they bring about.”

“This is, then,” the Pope concluded, “an integral catechesis which – involving body, soul and spirit – remains emblematic for the catechetical formation of Christians today. Let us ask the Lord to help us understand a Christianity that truly embraces all of our existence and makes us credible witnesses of Christ, true God and true man.”

Asia News gives a summary as Pope Bendict continues his series of addresses on the Church Fathers. This week: Cyril of Jerusalem …

Vatican City (AsiaNews) – “Denying Christ’s divinity”, which was at the centre of Arian heresy, “is still today a temptation for Christians”. In order to counter this “integral catechesis” is needed, through which the faithful can teach Christianity “which truly involves our entire existence and which makes us credible witnesses of Jesus Christ, truly God and truly man”. That was the objective which Saint Cyril of Jerusalem aimed to achieve in the IV century but which is still valid today, and which was also at the heart of the Pope’s reflection during his general audience today, centred on the figures of the early Church and the relevant aspects of their teachings in today’s world.

Cyril of Jerusalem, a fundamental figure above all for his catechesis, was the early father of the Church to whom Benedict XVI dedicated his one hundredth general audience of his pontificate. Encounters which have given him the opportunity to speak directly to 2, 280,100 people.

The over 10 thousand people, who took part in the audience, where spared the June heat and divided between St. Peter’s basilica and the Paul VI audience hall.

The Pope recalled that Cyril bishop of Jerusalem in the IV century, “against his will”, was involved in the “controversies” of the Eastern Church, but the Pope particularly underlined his work as a teacher of the faith, author of 24 catechesis, a true “introduction to Christianity” and “still today model of the journey to being Christian”.

Cyril, unjustly accused of Aryanism, while he was instead “a man full of faith”, met with exile three times before he was allowed to return for good to Jerusalem in 378 “bringing peace and unity once again among the faithful”.

His catechesis was not only intellectual but “a journey of learning how to live in the Christian community” and his teaching is “an integral catechesis which involves the body, soul and spirit, an emblem even for the Christians of today”. In short in his teaching “doctrine and life are not two distinct entities but one existential journey”. The objective which we must attempt to reach even today remains: “learning a Christianity that really involves our entire existence”.

At the end of his audience, greeting the diverse groups present the Pope reaffirmed his stance on the subject of stem cell research: “the position of the church is clear and supported from science and reason – that scientific research is promoted and encouraged, as long as it does not cause the destruction of human beings, whose dignity is inviolable from the first moment of existence”.

Today’s the feast of St. Cyril of Alexandria, one of the stars who shine brightly in the new, expanded edition of my book The Fathers of the Church. I discuss his eventful life in this post and, audibly, on KVSS this morning. My radio mentors, Bruce and Kris, have kindly posted the audio file on their “All Aquilina, All the Time” page.

Cyril was such a key figure in the development of Marian dogma. I think you should give your Mom a call on his feast. Pray the Rosary!

Kevin has taken up a new experiment, trying new, back-to-back literal and dynamic translations of the Psalms. And he’s returned to translating the Desert Fathers.

I found one of his posts from last week deeply moving.

Today, June 26, is the memorial of St. Josemaria Escriva, the 20th-century priest who founded Opus Dei, a path to holiness through ordinary work, family life, friendship, and such — the stuff of everyday life. His is a decidedly modern spirit, but he conceived it as a retrieval of the way of the “early Christians” (his preferred term). Opus Dei was, he said, “as old as the Gospel and, like the Gospel, ever new.” He often cited the authority of the Church Fathers. A quick scan of his books online at EscrivaWorks yields many passages from Clement of Alexandria, Ignatius of Antioch, Tertullian, Ambrose, Justin Martyr, Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Cyril of Alexandria, Leo the Great, Jerome, lots and lots from John Chrysostom and Gregory the Great, and dozens from Augustine.

These early Christians were not mere ornaments on his pet project. His vocation was itself a return to the sources — the pre-Nicene sources of the life and labor of ordinary, faithful Christians. The journalist John L. Allen, in his book-length study of Opus Dei, described just how radical St. Josemaria’s vision was: “The idea of priests and laity, men and women, all part of one organic whole, sharing the same vocation and carrying out the same apostolic tasks, has not been part of the Catholic tradition, at least since the early centuries.”

Back in the 1990s (before St. Josemaria’s canonization), the theologian Domingo Ramos-Lissón wrote an excellent study of the man’s patristic influences. It’s titled “The Example of the Early Christians in Blessed Josemaria’s Teachings,” and it’s available free online at the website of the magazine Romana.

Scott Hahn has written what I consider the finest appreciation of St. Josemaria’s reliance on the Fathers. It’s in his recently released book Ordinary Work, Extraordinary Grace: My Spiritual Journey in Opus Dei. The whole book is great. You really should own it!

A new book on the background of the Council of Nicea, The Church in the Age of Constantine: The Theological Challenges, gets the once-over in Bryn Mawr Classical Review. Hat tip: Rogue Classicism.

Ben C. Smith posts part 7 of his series on ancient canonical lists. This installment focuses on the list proposed in the catechetical lectures of Cyril of Jerusalem (fourth century).

Those interested in matters canonical should also look into Gary G. Michuta’s important new book on the development of the canon, Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger: The Untold Story of the Lost Books of the Protestant Bible. (Some background here.)

Earlier this week, Pope Benedict met with Mar Dinkha IV, patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East. The Assyrians, separated from Catholic unity since the time of Nestorius, are heirs to the East Syrian Christian traditions. During the pontificate of John Paul II, the Assyrians and Catholics signed a common christological declaration, agreed to share Communion under certain circumstances, and permitted free use of one another’s liturgies. (I discussed the matter briefly here and also in my new book The Resilient Church: The Glory, the Shame, and the Hope for Tomorrow.) This ecumenical progress is urgent at least partly because the Assyrians are suffering mightily alongside Chaldean Catholics in war-torn Iraq. These developments permit a greater latitude for pastoral care.

The full text of Pope Benedict’s address to Mar Dinkha is here.

Today’s the memorial of St. Paulinus of Nola, a Father of the Church. Every year on this date I find that I can’t shake the melody of “Nola,” perhaps history’s most famous whistling song. I suppose it could be worse. I could hear the Kinks singing “Nola, n-n-n-n-Nola…” St. Paulinus, pray for me.

It’s also the memorial of St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher, the English martyrs. So I’m issuing a rerun of More on the Fathers, taken from The Life of Sir Thomas More by his son-in-law William Roper:

He said, “To be plain with your Grace, neither my Lord of Durham, nor my Lord of Bath, though I know them both to be wise, virtuous, and learned, and honourable prelates, nor myself with the rest of your Council, being all your Grace’s own servants, for your manifold benefits daily bestowed on us, so most bounden unto you, be in my judgment meet counsellors for your Grace herein; but if your Grace minds to understand the truth, such counsellors may you have devised, as neither for respect of their own worldly commodity, nor for fear of your princely authority, will be inclined to deceive you.”

To whom he named St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and divers other holy doctors, both Greeks and Latins: and moreover showed him what authority he had gathered out of them, which although the King did not very well like of (as disagreeable to his Grace’s desire), yet were they by Sir Thomas More (who in all his communication with the King in that matter had always most wisely behaved himself) so wisely tempered, that he both presently took them in good part, and oftentimes had thereof conference with him again.

An Italian archeologist told the Telegraph (London) that he knows where the Holy Grail is hidden. Chris Bailey and I are sticking by our story as it appears in The Grail Code — whether in English, Czech, Hungarian, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, or Canadian French.

It’s the St. Lawrence connection, of course…

An archaeologist has sparked a Da Vinci Code-style hunt for the Holy Grail after claiming ancient records show it is buried under a 6th century church in Rome.

The cup – said to have been used by Christ at the Last Supper – is the focus of countless legends and has been sought for centuries.

Alfredo Barbagallo, an Italian archaeologist, claims that it is buried in a chapel-like room underneath the Basilica of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura, one of the seven churches which Christian pilgrims used to visit when they came to Rome.

Mr Barbagallo based his claim on two years spent studying mediaeval iconography inside the basilica and a description of a particular chamber, in a guide to the catacombs written in 1938 by a Capuchin friar named Giuseppe Da Bra.

The friar describes a room of about 20 square metres with a vaulted roof ceiling. “In the corner of a wall-seat there can be seen a terracotta funnel whose lower part opens out over the face of a skeleton,” he wrote.

Da Bra then explains that giving liquid refreshment (refrigerium) to the dead was part of ancient funeral rites.

According to Mr Barbagallo, who heads an association called Arte e Mistero [Art and Mystery], this funnel is the Grail.

He also points out to several beautiful mosaics and frescos in the basilica which feature images of the sacred cup.

Mr Barbagallo added that its presence in the church fits the sketchy accounts of its early guardians.

In 258 AD, during a phase of Christian persecution, Pope Sixtus V reportedly entrusted the treasures of the early Church to a deacon called Lawrence, Lorenzo in Italian. This deacon was martyred four days later and since then no one has ever seen the Grail.

Various legends have it that the cup, given the name Holy Grail in the Middle Ages, was taken to different countries – including Britain.

Dan Brown’s work of fiction, The Da Vinci Code, said the cup had been buried at Rossyln Chapel in Scotland, and sparked off a stampede to the isolated location as thousands flocked to see it for themselves.

Mr Barbagallo said he believed it never went anywhere, and stayed with St Lawrence in his tomb.

Emperor Constantine built a shrine on the site of Lawrence’s martyrdom in the 4th Century and the main part of the Basilica of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura was built in AD580 on the same spot.

The catacombs where Mr Barbagallo believes the cup to buried come under the authority of the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology.

A spokesman said: “We are aware of the reports and a few weeks ago made an initial investigation of the area with the possibility of opening the catacombs up but as yet no decision has been made.”

Here is Zenit’s translation of the full text of the pope’s June 20 reflection on St. Athanasius.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Continuing with our catechetical series on the great teachers of the ancient Church, today we turn our attention to St. Athanasius of Alexandria. This true protagonist of Christian tradition, just a few years after his death, was celebrated as a “pillar of the Church” by the great theologian and bishop of Constantinople, Gregory Nazianzen (Discourses 26:26). He has always been esteemed as a model of orthodoxy, in the East as well as in the West.

It was no mistake that Gian Lorenzo Bernini placed a statue of him among the four holy doctors of the Eastern and Western Church — together with Ambrose, John Chrysostom and Augustine — which surround the chair of Peter in the apse of the Vatican basilica.

Athanasius was, without a doubt, one of the most important and venerated Fathers of the ancient Church. But above all, this great saint is the passionate theologian of the incarnation of the “Logos,” the Word of God, which — as the prologue of the fourth Gospel says — “was made flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14).

For this reason Athanasius was also the most important and tenacious adversary of the Arian heresy, which at that time was threatening faith in Christ by reducing him to a creature between God and man, following a recurring tendency in history that we still see in various forms today.

Athanasius was most likely born in Alexandria in Egypt, around the year 300, and received a good education before becoming a deacon and secretary of Bishop Alexander of Alexandria. The young cleric worked closely with his bishop, and accompanied him to, and took part in, the Council of Nicaea, the first such ecumenical council, called by the Emperor Constantine in May 325 to ensure the unity of the Church. The fathers of the Nicene Council dealt with many questions, foremost among them, the serious problems that had originated some years before with the preaching of the deacon Arius.

His theory threatened authentic faith in Christ, declaring that the “logos” was not true God, but a created God, a being not quite God and not quite man, but in the middle. And therefore the true God remained inaccessible to us. The bishops in Nicaea responded by emphasizing and establishing the “Symbol of Faith” that, later completed by the first Council of Constantinople, remained in the tradition of various Christian confessions and in the liturgy as the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.

In this fundamental text — which expresses the faith of the undivided Church, and which we still recite today, each Sunday in the Eucharistic celebration — we see the Greek term “homooúsios,” in Latin “consubstantialis,” which means that the Son, the Logos, is “of the same substance” as the Father, is God from God, is his substance. Therefore the full divinity of the Son, which was negated by the Arians, is seen.

Upon the death of Bishop Alexander, Athanasius became, in 328, his successor as bishop of Alexandria. He immediately decided to fight against every compromise resulting from the Arian theories condemned by the Council of Nicaea. His resolve — tenacious and at times very tough, even if necessary — with those who were opposed to his election as bishop and above all against the adversaries of the Nicene Symbol, brought upon him the relentless hostility of the Arians and their supporters.

Despite the unequivocal outcome of the Council, which clearly affirmed that the Son was of the same substance as the Father, these erroneous ideas returned once more to dominate public thought — so that even Arius himself regained popularity, and was supported for political motives by Emperor Constantine and then by his son Constantine II. The latter was not interested in theological truth but rather the unity of the empire and its political problems; he wanted to politicize the faith, making it more accessible — in his view — to all the subjects of the empire.

The Arian crisis, which was thought to be resolved in Nicaea, continued in this way for decades, with difficult incidents and painful divisions in the Church. And five times — during the 30 years between 336 and 366 — Athanasius was forced to abandon the city, living 17 years in exile and suffering for the faith.

But during his forced absences from Alexandria, the bishop was able to sustain and spread — in the West, first in Trier and then in Rome — the faith of the Nicene Council and the ideals of monasticism, which were embraced in Egypt by the great hermit Anthony whose choice of life Athanasius followed closely. St. Anthony, with his spiritual strength, was the most important person in sustaining the faith of St. Athanasius.

After the definitive return to his see, the bishop of Alexandria was able to dedicate himself to religious pacification and the reorganization of the Christian community. He died on May 2, 373, the day in which we celebrate his liturgical feast.

The most famous work of the Alexandrian bishop is the treatise on the “Incarnation of the Word, ” the divine “Logos” made flesh, like us, for our salvation.

In this work, Athanasius says, in a phrase that has become well known, that the Word of God “became man so that we might become God. He manifested himself by means of a body in order that we might perceive the unseen Father. He endured shame from men that we might inherit immortality” (54:3).

In fact, with his resurrection, the Lord made death disappear like “straw in the fire” (8:4). The fundamental idea of the entire theological battle of St. Athanasius was that God is accessible. He is not a secondary God, he is true God, and through our communion with Christ we can truly unite ourselves to God. He truly became “God with us.”

Among the other works of this great Father of the Church — which deal mainly with the events of the Arian crisis — we recall the four letters that he addressed to his friend Serapion, bishop of Thmius, on the divine nature of the Holy Spirit, which was clearly affirmed.

And there are some 30 or so “festal” letters, written at the beginning of every year, to the Churches and monasteries of Egypt to indicate the date of Easter, but moreover to strengthen the ties among the faithful, reinforcing their faith and preparing them for that great solemnity.

Athanasius is also the author of meditative texts on the Psalms, which were vastly distributed, and a text that constituted a “best seller” of ancient Christian literature: the “Life of Anthony,” the biography of St. Anthony the Abbot, written shortly after the death of this saint, while the bishop of Alexandria was in exile, living with the monks of the Egyptian desert. Athanasius was a friend of the great hermit, and even received one of the two sheepskins left by Anthony as his inheritance, together with the mantel that he himself had given him.

The biography of this beloved figure in Christian tradition contributed greatly to the spread of monasticism in the East and the West, as it became very popular and was soon translated twice in Latin and then in other Eastern languages.

The letter of this text, to Trier, is at the center of an emotional telling of the conversion of two ministers of the emperor, which Augustine mentions in the “Confessions” (VIII, 6:15) as a premise of his own conversion.

Athanasius showed that he had a clear awareness of the influence that the figure of Anthony could have on the Christian people.

In fact, he writes in the conclusion of this work: “And the fact that his fame has been blazoned everywhere; that all regard him with wonder, and that those who have never seen him long for him, is clear proof of his virtue and God’s love of his soul. For not from writings, nor from worldly wisdom, nor through any art, was Anthony renowned, but solely from his piety toward God.

“That this was the gift of God no one will deny. For from whence into Spain and into Gaul, how into Rome and Africa, was the man heard of who dwelled hidden in a mountain, unless it was God who makes his own known everywhere, who also promised this to Anthony at the beginning? For even if they work secretly, even if they wish to remain in obscurity, yet the Lord shows them as lamps to lighten all, that those who hear may thus know that the precepts of God are able to make men prosper and thus be zealous in the path of virtue” (“Life of Anthony” 93, 5-6).

Yes, brothers and sisters! We have many reasons to thank St. Athanasius. His life, as that of Anthony and countless other saints, shows us that “those who draw near to God do not withdraw from men, but rather become truly close to them” (“Deus Caritas Est,” 42).

Zenit has posted two stories (here and here) about yesterday’s papal audience on Athanasius. Vatican Information Service has also posted its summary.

No, not that Hilary. I mean the fourth-century guy from Poitiers — the Athanasius of the West. My paesan David Scott sent me this quote last week, from Hilary’s protest against one of the Arian emperors:

He does not impale us with his sword. No, he strokes our belly. He does not confiscate our goods, and thereby give us life — he enriches us, that we may die. He does not cast us into dungeons, thereby setting us on the path to freedom — he imprisons us in the honors of his palace. ….He showers priests with honors, so that there will be no good bishops. He builds churches, that he may dismantle the faith.

On the strength of that quote alone, I bought this book.

If this Hilary runs, he’s got my vote.