Spirituality: The unity of the Church; mercy toward the fallen.
Reflection: Cyprian was a wealthy teacher of rhetoric who was converted in middle
age and soon made bishop of Carthage. During persecution he guided his flock from
hiding, then wrestled with the hard question of how to receive back those who had
denied the faith. His treatise On the Unity of the Church contains the famous saying,
“He can no longer have God for his Father who has not the Church for his mother.” In 258 he was beheaded; when his sentence was read, he simply said, “Thanks be to
God.” Cyprian is named in the Roman Canon.