24 May 2021
On Holy Communion
You
must consider your senses as the door to a house. Through the senses all images
of things enter into the heart, and, through the senses, the innumerable
multitude of lusts pour into it. The Prophet Joel calls the senses windows,
saying: “They shall enter in at our windows like a thief” (Jl. 2:9), because
these windows have not been marked with the precious blood of Christ. Moreover,
the Law commanded that, after the slaughter (of the lamb), the Israelites were
to smear the doorposts and the lintels of their houses with its blood, showing
by this that the precious blood of Christ protects our own earthly
dwelling-place, which is to say, our body, and that the death brought about by
the transgression is repelled through our enjoyment of the partaking of life
(that is, of life-giving Communion). Further, through our sealing (with the
blood of Christ) we distance from ourselves the destroyer.
Cyril of Alexandria
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