Today July 30

Today is the feast of St. Peter Chrysologus, the "Golden Word" (405 -450 AD). Anyway, it was true indeed that he was a great preacher. It is also true that he was, as one modern (church) historian has said, "no Western Chrysostom, and that there were other preachers who deserve the title Chrysologus better than he," but he was so called years ago, and he so remains. He was very popular in his time and he still appeals to us over the years with a simple directness. He is, after all, a doctor of the Church.

His sermons were always very short (could this account for at least some of his popularity?) and not especially eloquent, but he was, all told, a good bishop. He was just a deacon when he was tapped to be the archbishop of Ravenna, and he met with considerable affronted opposition in his diocese when he got there. But he had justice and authority on his side, and with patience he triumphed. It wasn't easy: his huge diocese was more than a little pagan and even among the believers, heterodoxy was rampant. One especially, the heresy we call Monophysitism, was troublesome. The priest Eutyches, in his effort to eradicate Nestorianism, which holds that there are two Persons in Christ, swung the pendulum too far the other way, and made one nature of the one Person: neither man nor God, but some in-between being. Eutyches, prior to his execrable triumph at the illicit Robber Synod (where he actually had ninja-type monks beat up his accuser, St. Flavian), sent out a circular letter to all the powers that be in the Church at the time, including our saint of the day. St. Peter gently told him that the Incarnation is given to us by divine revelation, and though we cannot explain it, we must believe it, in all simplicity and trust. And we must obey "the Pope of the City of Rome; for Blessed Peter, who was and presided in his own see, provides the truth of faith to those who seek it." Amen.