July 30th - Peter Chrysologus

There is contention about the validity and place of the Fathers in the practice of our Faith. It is the argument of some that it is their introduction of philosophical language which corrupts the true church. We who honor the Fathers see their efforts as helping to guide and remove corruption from the Church. Their ability to articulate understandings about the Faith answers doubt and rights inaccurate thinking. It is easy to dismiss them as non-biblical but to ignore the Fathers is to fall into many of the traps that they speak against.
Peter's ability to voice complex ideas succinctly and brilliantly led many to deeper understanding and practice of the Faith. In fact it would be easy to place a complete copy of any of his homilies here because they are so short and to the point. But for even more brevity I will only sample two with similar themes.

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Christ’s birth was not necessity, but an expression of omnipotence, a sacrament of piety for the redemption of men. He who made humans without generation from pure clay made man again and was born from a pure body. The hand that assumed clay to make our flesh deigned to assume a body for your salvation. That the Creator is in his creature and God is in the flesh brings dignity to man without dishonor to him who made him.
Why then, man, are you so worthless in your own eyes and yet so precious to God?
Why render yourself such dishonor when you are honored by him?
Why do you ask how you were created and do not seek to know why you were made?

-- From a Homily on the Nativity of Christ

The man made from the earth is the pattern of those who belong to the earth; the man from heaven is the pattern of those who belong to heaven. How is it that these last, though they do not belong to heaven by birth, will yet belong to heaven, men who do not remain what they were by birth but persevere in being what they have become by rebirth? The reason is, brethren, that the heavenly Spirit, by the mysterious infusion of his light, gives fertility to the womb of the virginal font. The Spirit brings forth as men belonging to heaven those whose earthly ancestry brought them forth as men belonging to the earth, and in a condition of wretchedness; he gives them the likeness of their Creator. Now that we are reborn, refashioned in the image of our Creator, we must fulfill what the Apostle commands: So, as we have worn the likeness of the man of earth, let us also wear the likeness of the man of heaven.

-- From Sermon 117