Memorial of Saint Basil the Great and Saint Gregory Nazianzen

Today's Mass Readings

Today is the feast day for two of my favorite theologians, Basil the Great and Gregory of Nazianzus. The two were friends, along with Basil’s brother Gregory of Nyssa (whose feast day we observe on March 9th). These are saints that are perhaps more familiar to our Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters, but they are very important for both Eastern and Western Christianity.
Today’s scriptures help to highlight two important aspects of these saints’ lives. The first scripture is taken from the first letter of John (2:22-28). This scripture text provides one of the bases for the Church’s doctrine of the Trinity, the belief that God is somehow both one and three. The language in that passage suggests that the person who “remains in” the Son remains in the Father as well, evidence that there is some sort of connection between Father and Son.

My students always find that Trinitarian doctrine is difficult to understand once they really start thinking about it. For example, a lot of them want to say “I pray to Jesus and God” and I point out that in Trinitarian thought, this is not quite correct, because then they seem to suggest that Jesus is somehow distinct from, and not quite like, God. But if we believe that Jesus is Lord, we cannot make Jesus out to be less than God, or else it looks like we Christians are worshipping two gods. My students eventually realize that what they meant, but weren’t saying, is “I pray to the Father and the Son.”

Saints Basil and Gregory are particularly remembered for the ways they helped develop Trinitarian doctrine so that we could understand it better. Saint Basil suggested that we can see that the Holy Spirit and Son and the Father are somehow both distinct from each other (the Father is not the same as the Son) and yet they are unifed together. Basil described the unity between the three persons of the Trinity like a little community of three – they are unified because they are related. Saint Gregory Nazianzen wrote particularly about the person of the Holy Spirit. He suggested that God must be Trinity because the Holy Spirit is always present in God’s actions. He wrote, “Christ works miracles, the Spirit accompanies them. Christ ascends, the Spirit takes His place. What great things are there in the idea of God which are not in His power?”

The gospel reading also highlights an important part about these saints’ lives. Like John the Baptist of whom we have heard much throughout Advent, Basil and Gregory Nazianzen are witnesses to Jesus Christ. (Today’s story about John the Baptist is taken from a different gospel account than we heard in Advent, though: John 1:19-28.) Basil and Gregory know that they were not Christ, but all of their good acts are meant to show us Christ’s own light. So, for example, the two saints were great administrators and arbitrators in disputes between the church and the emperor. They were also very pastoral people who aimed to help people live their lives fully in Christ. Basil founded a community for providing assistance to the poor and those in need of medical treatment and delivered sermons on how Christians ought to spend their money. They did all these things in the name of Christ, whom we honor this Christmas season.

Today, may we reflect on the ways we can be witnesses to the Father, through Christ who became God-made-flesh, with the Holy Spirit, who has been sent to be with us here.

-- Jana Bennett