Memorial of Saint Cyril, monk, and Saint Methodius, bishop
(Genesis 2:18-25; Mark 7:24-30)
Today in this liturgy we celebrate four
evangelizers. We may be stretching both
the term as well as the liturgy to render such a result. However, it will be worth the effort if we reinforce
our sense of being evangelizers as well.
The first to be mentioned is Jesus himself. He is the evangelizer par excellence. The Father
sent him to the world to announce His great love. In the gospel reading Jesus evidently needs
some rest from the work. Nevertheless,
he heals the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter so that she too can give thanks
and praise to the God of Israel.
Should we not see the Syrophoenician as an evangelizer? She explains -- to Jesus in a sense and
certainly to us – that God’s love was never intended solely for Jews. She knows instinctively that it is meant for
every human being. She also shows us how
God especially bestows His efficacious love on the humble of heart.
Today the Church remembers Saints Cyril and Methodius. They were ninth century missionaries who
overcame hardships and challenges to convert a part of Russia and Moravia to
Christ. Coming from Greece, their
orthodoxy was suspect in the Western church.
German bishops were especially hostile to their efforts to work among
the peoples of Moravia. However, they
demonstrated their faithfulness to established doctrine and used their
scholarship to abet their work. They translated
the Bible into Slavic languages which assisted their evangelization efforts.
According to Fr. Stephen Rehrauer, a Redemptorist moral
theologian, St. Valentine was a priest of Rome during one of the great
persecutions of the Church. He was
arrested and spent time in jail before his execution. There he converted the jailer’s blind daughter
to Christ. On his way to his martyrdom,
he slipped the girl an envelope with a note reminding her to be faithful to her
promise to love others like Christ. He
signed the note, “Your Valentine.” When
the girl opened the envelope and found the note, she received the gift of sight. Fr. Rehrauer concludes that when people today
exchange Valentine greetings, they might keep this story in mind. He says that in asking one another to be
their “Valentine,” they are not asking that they be their lovers, but their mentors. They are asking that they teach them the love
of Christ.
