Feast Day: September 16th
The Life of Saint Cyprian: “By the help of the water of new birth, the stain of former years had been washed away, and a Light from above, serene and pure, had been infused into my reconciled heart, – after that, by the agency of the Spirit breathed from Heaven, a second birth had restored me to a new man…
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Prayers
Troparion – Tone 4: By sharing in the ways of the Apostles, you became a successor to their throne. Through the practice of Virtue, you found the way to Divine contemplation, O Divinely-inspired one; by rightly dividing the Word of Truth without error, you defended the Faith, even to the shedding of your blood. O Hieromartyr Cyprian, entreat Christ God to save our Souls.
Troparion – Tone 8: Guide of Orthodoxy, teacher of piety and Holiness, luminary of Carthage, and Divinely-inspired adornment of Confessors. O wise Cyprian, by your teachings you have enlightened all, O harp of the Spirit. Pray to Christ God that our Souls may be saved.
Kontakion – Tone 4: As one who lived piously among Hierarchs and who underwent Martyrdom, O Divinely-wise one, you abolished the sacrifices of idolatry and showed yourself to be a protector of your flock. Therefore, we cry fervently to you: “By your intercessions, deliver us from all misfortunes, O Cyprian our Father.”
Kontakion – Tone 1: We honour you, O Cyprian, as a true shepherd who by your Sacred words and Divinely-wise doctrines have shown us the boundary stones which mark the one Church of Christ. You bore witness courageously, even unto death; therefore, we praise you as a Hierarch and Martyr. Pray to Christ God that our Souls may be saved.
“No one is strong in his own strength, but he is safe by the Grace and Mercy of God.”
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“Be constantly committed to Prayer or to reading [Scripture]; by Praying, you speak to God, in reading, God speaks to you.”
“If He Prayed Who was without sin, how much more it becometh a sinner to pray!”
“In proportion to the size of the vessel of faith, brought by us to the Lord, is the measure we draw out of His overflowing Grace.”
“When we Pray to God with entire assurance, it is Himself Who has given us the Spirit of Prayer.”
“He [Christ] protects their Faith and gives strength to believers in proportion to the trust that each man who receives that strength is willing to place in him.”
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“Whatever a man prefers to God, that he makes a god to himself.”
“This Supernatural Bread and this Consecrated Chalice are for the health and Salvation of mankind.”
“And according as we say, “Our Father,” because He is The Father of those who understand and believe; so also we call it “our Bread,” because Christ is The Bread of those who are in union with His Body. And we ask that this Bread should be given to us daily, that we who are in Christ, and daily receive The Eucharist for the Food of Salvation, may not by the interposition of some heinous sin… be separated from Christ’s Body.”
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“There is one God and one Christ, and one Church, and one chair founded on Peter by the word of the Lord. It is not possible to set up another altar or for there to be another priesthood besides that one altar and that one priesthood. Whoever has gathered elsewhere is scattering.”
“Think not that you are thus maintaining the Gospel of Christ when you separate yourselves from the flock of Christ.”
“Before all things, the Teacher of Peace and the Master of Unity would not have Prayer made singly and individually, as for one who Prays only for himself. For we do not say, “My Father, Who art in Heaven”… Our Prayer is public and common; and when we Pray, we Pray not for one, but for the whole people, because we the whole people are one.”
“If, in the case of the worst sinners and those who formerly sinned much against God, when afterwards they believe, the remission of their sins is granted and no one is held back from Baptism and Grace, how much more, then, should an infant not be held back, who, having but recently been born, has done no sin, except that, born of the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of that old death from his first being born. For this very reason does he [an infant] approach more easily to receive the remission of sins: because the sins forgiven him are not his own but those of another.”
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“May all Christians be found worthy of either the Pure White Crown of a Holy life or the Royal Red Crown of Martyrdom.”
“For the helmsman is recognized in the tempest; in the warfare the soldier is proved.”
“Persevere in labours that lead to Salvation. Always be busy in Spiritual actions. In this way, no matter how often the enemy of our Souls approaches, no matter how many times he may try to come near us, he’ll find our hearts closed and armed against him.”
“Let us, then, who in Baptism have both died and been buried in respect to the carnal sins of the old man, who have risen again with Christ in the Heavenly regeneration, both think upon and do the things that are Christ’s.”
“Our Prayers and fastings are of less avail, unless they are aided by almsgiving.”
“Their property held them in chains…chains which shackled their courage and choked their faith and hampered their judgment and throttled their soul… If they stored up their treasure in heaven, they would not now have an enemy and a thief within their own household… They think of themselves as owners, whereas it is they rather who are owned: enslaved as they are to their own property, they are not the masters of their money but its slaves.”