Don't be troubled when you meditate on the greatness of your former sins, but rather know that God's grace is so much greater in magnitude that it justifies the sinner and absolves the wicked.
(Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke, p. 173)
... the Son came, or rather was made man, in order to reconstitute our condition within himself... That was why he himself became the first one to be born of the Holy Spirit (I mean of course after the flesh) so that he could trace a path for grace to come to us. He wanted us to have this intellectual regeneration and spiritual assimilation to himself, who is the true and natural Son, so that we too might be able to call God our Father...
(On the Unity of Christ, pp. 62-63)
... he transmits the grace of sonship even to us..., insofar as human nature had first achieved this possibility in him.
(On the Unity of Christ, p. 63)
Now, everything is holy which is free of this world's defilement. And {such holiness} is in Christ by His very nature, just as it is in the Father; but in the holy disciples it is something adventitious, introduced from outside {through their participation in the Holy Spirit}, by means of the sanctification that comes by way of grace, and by means of splendid, virtuous living; for this is the manner in which one is fashioned to the divine, supramundane image.
(The Image of God in Man according to Cyril of Alexandria, p. 74, quoting from Cyril's text, "In Ioannem" 11,9)
But though the Lord of all be a bountiful Giver, yet giveth He not simply to all men without distinction, but to such rather as are worthy of His bounty... God, who knoweth all things, bestoweth not a share in His bounties upon souls careless and pleasure seeking, but upon such as are in a fit state rightly to receive them. If then any one would be accounted worthy of these great honors, and of being accepted by God, let him first free himself from the pollutions of evil, and the guilt of indifference, of so he will become capable of receiving them; but if he be not so disposed in mind, let him depart far away.
(Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke, p. 246)
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