Daily Gospel Reflection
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March 18, 2019
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
“Stop judging and you will not be judged.
Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.
Forgive and you will be forgiven.
Give and gifts will be given to you;
a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing,
will be poured into your lap.
For the measure with which you measure
will in return be measured out to you.”
This past week, I had the privilege of traveling to Uganda and hearing the amazing story of Saint Jude’s Farm from its founder, Josephine Kizza. After the Ugandan civil war in 1986, Josephine and her husband John had no choice but to start from scratch. They moved into a plot of land that John had inherited from his grandfather and spent every day down on their knees for years, working hard but also praying hard for the intercession of St Jude, patron saint of impossible causes.
Eventually, that empty plot turned into St Jude’s Farm, one of the most impressive organic farms and nonprofit agriculture learning centers in Uganda. Through outreach and learning programs, they have trained over twenty thousand village farmers on how to sustain and dignify themselves through farming while also maintaining the environment for future generations.
Just as today’s Gospel tells us “give and gifts will be given to you,” Saint Jude’s Farm’s motto instructs us to: “feed the land so that the land feeds you.” Josephine and her organization have fed not only the land but also the needs of their neighbors for support and education. Their generosity has been returned to them in the gifts of a rich and bountiful land and a more vibrant and dignified community.
During this season of Lent, let us step aside from the distractions of our comfortable lives and humbly recognize that we come from the dust of the earth. We are called by God to a deep unity with our fellow humans and our environment. Thus, let us seek to be more attentive to the needs of those around us, and more aware of the blessings of nature as we care for it. May the overflowing measure of God’s goodness be poured out into our lives through renewed relationships with our neighbors and with all of God’s creation.
Prayer
God, the greatest gift we can give you is being merciful to our sisters and brothers. In order to forgive, however, we have to let go of the pain we hold. Letting go of those hurts is a hard sacrifice—help us to die to ourselves willingly so that we can live in your mercy. Amen.
Saint of the Day
Cyril of Jerusalem is a revered figure in the Palestinian Christian community and is one of the thirty-seven Doctors of the Church.
Cyril was born around the year 313 AD, the same year in which Christianity was declared legal in the Roman Empire when Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan. According to Butler's Lives of the Saints, Cyril was a well-educated young man, who grew up in or near the city of Jerusalem. He was educated in classical Greek philosophy and read Christian Scripture and the Church Fathers. Around 350 AD, Cyril became the bishop of Jerusalem. During the fourth century, Christian thinkers were wrestling with many different strands of thought, and discerning which were orthodox and which were heretical. These philosophical and theological debates caused tensions between the different Christian communities.
Cyril had a particularly fraught relationship with the bishop of Caesarea, the beautiful Mediterranean town to the north of Jerusalem, where Herod the Great had built his luxurious palace. The Bishop of Caesarea, Acacius, is characterized as an Arian bishop (meaning a bishop who subscribed to the belief that Jesus was not eternally begotten by the Father before time began), and Cyril was an orthodox Christian, which probably contributed to their strained relationship. Additionally, during the fourth century, Jerusalem, originally a smaller episcopal see, began rising in prominence, as Constantine and Helena discovered the true cross, the site of Golgotha, and the legality of Christianity led to increased building of shrines, churches, and floods of pilgrims coming from all over the empire to this small section of the Mediterranean coastline.
Acacius accused Cyril of selling Church valuables—vestments and imperial gifts—without permission. During the 350s, there was a famine in Jerusalem, and Cyril is supposed to have sold Church treasures to buy food for his people. Acacius had Cyril deposed in 357 by a council of bishops sympathetic to Acacius. In 359, Cyril was restored to his see—only to suffer a continual stream of exiles and returns as various emperors ascended and descended from the throne.
Perhaps, as a result of finding himself at the mercy of powers outside of himself, Cyril's writings focus on the loving and forgiving nature of our merciful God. The Holy Spirit, writes Cyril, "comes with the tenderness of a true friend to save, to heal, to teach, to counsel, to strengthen, and to console." His writing was used to instruct those preparing for Baptism in the Christian faith. Cyril's Catechetical Lectures still inspire and encourage Christians to this day:
As Christ after His Baptism, and the visitation of the Holy Ghost, went forth and vanquished the adversary, so likewise ye, after Holy Baptism and the Mystical Chrism, having put on the whole armor of the Holy Ghost, are to stand against the power of the adversary, and vanquish it, saying, I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me (Philippians 4:13).
Finally, in 378, Cyril returned to his beloved hometown and remained there until his death in 386AD. He was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIII in 1883.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem, an early witness to the sacred sites of Christian devotion—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Cyril of Jerusalem is in the public domain. Last accessed February 6, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons.
