Saturday, March 11, 2017

Lent X

Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin: altars are become to him unto sin. I shall write to him my manifold laws, which have been accounted as foreign. (Hosea 8:11-12)

For salvation it is necessary, therefore, to cling to the divine altars and adhere to the things of God, and not to go after other things which are sinful. The latter in fact is what they do who do not live a truly Christian life, lapsing, after the saving sacrament of baptism, into pagan cusoms and observances; it behoves them to say what they find in Paul: "You cannot partake of the Lord's table and the demons' table."

[St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Twelve Prophets, Volume 1, CUA Press (Washington, DC: 2007), p. 172.]