Homily for the Memorial of Saints Cornelius and Cyprian

September 16, 2026
Saint Mary’s University and Seminary
Baltimore, Maryland

2 Corinthians 4:7-15
Psalm 126:1bc-2ab, 2cd-3, 4-5, 6 “Those who sow in tears shall reap rejoicing.”
John 17:11b-19

The Church offers us this liturgical memorial for these two especially important saints in the history of Church: Saint Cornelius, pope and martyr, and Saint Cyprian, his contemporary and a martyr. Our readings and prayers show us also that the intercession, the lives, and the ministries of these saints are truly relevant for our reflection in the current circumstances of the Church today in the United States and around the world.

Cornelius and Cyprian each preached the importance of the communion of the Church as founded by Christ upon the Rock of Peter amidst persecution by the Emperor Decius and also amidst schism fomented by the false claimant to the Chair of Peter, the schismatic Novatian. The persecution by the Empire was so strong that it took 14 months for Cornelius to be chosen as the new pope. The persecution exploited the schism and disunity that had as its source violent disagreement between the laxists and the rigorists regarding whether those who had apostatized the Catholic Faith could be forgiven and readmitted into the Communion of the Church.

Each of these saints responded to the pastoral problem of apostasy in the face of persecution. They each counseled and directed the requirement of penance for those who had abandoned the faith to return to full communion, in opposition to the laxists who saw no need for penance for a return to communion with the Church. Likewise, they each counseled and directed the responsibility of the Church to strive for the reconciliation and return of former apostates to full communion with the Church opposed to those rigorists who maintained that the apostates were eternally lost. The result of their fidelity to the Gospel was their own persecution not only by the Pagan Empire but also by the rigorists and laxists each claiming to be Christian and orthodox.

These saints remind us through their martyrdom that the Church’s commitment to the transcendentals of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful is always directed to the communion of the Church with Christ and not simply to these three transcendentals as abstractions. Our fundamental goal as Catholics is to be in Communion with Christ and each other in keeping with the prayer that He prayed to His Father while on the Cross that today’s Gospel records: “Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one.” When we suffer persecution and even discouragement because of our commitment as men of communion, let us remind each other that Christ Himself is praying for us when He addressed this prayer to His Father. Cornelius and Cyprian remind us by their blood that they shed for Christ that “They did not belong to this world any more than Christ belongs to this world.” As we continue this celebration of the Eucharist and receive our communion with Christ, let us ask Him to deliver us from the temptation to belong to this world that we might belong only to Him and to His one Church.