A faith that is ready and unskaken

Treasures of Our Faith with Deacon Richard Vehige

Today, September 16th , as our Church celebrates the Memorial of Cornelius, Pope and Martyr, and Cyprian, Bishop and Martyr, we are invited to reflect on a passage of Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans (8: 18-39), entitled “Nothing is able to separate us from the love of God which comes to us through Jesus Christ”. Our treasure, which follows, is from the letter by Saint Cyprian, bishop and martyr.

Saint Cornelius was ordained Bishop of the church of Rome in 251. He fought against the Novatian schematics with the help of Cyprian was able to enforce his authority. Driven in the exile by the emperor Gallus, he died in 253 at Civitavecchia. His body was brought to Rome where he was buried in the cemetery of Saint Callistus.

Saint Cyprian was born of pagan parents in Carthage around the year 210. He was converted, ordained, and subsequently made bishop of that city in the year 249. By his writings and his actions, Cyprian guided the church through difficult times. In the persecution of Valerian he was exiled, then martyred on the fourteenth September, 258.

Of all the letters of Paul, that to the Christians at Rome has long held pride of place. It is the longest and most systematic unfolding of the apostle’s thought, expounding the gospel of God’s righteousness that saves all who believe; it reflects a universal outlook, with special implications for Israel’s relation to the church. Yet, like all Paul’s letters, Romans too arose out of a specific situation, when the apostle wrote from Greece, likely Corinth, between A.D. 56 and 58.

Paul at that time was about to leave for Jerusalem with a collection of funds for the impoverished Jewish Christian believers there, taken up from his predominantly Gentile congregations. He planned then to travel on to Rome and to enlist support there for a mission to Spain. Such a journey had long been on his mind. Now, with much missionary preaching successfully accomplished in the East, he sought new opportunities in the West, in order to complete the divine plan of evangelization in the Roman world. Yet he recognized that the visit to Jerusalem would be hazardous, and we know from Acts that Paul was arrested there and came to Rome only in chains, as a prisoner.