Homily for Memorial of Sts. Basil & Gregory Nazianzen

Homily for the Memorial of
Sts. Basil & Gregory Nazianzen

Jan. 2, 2025
Collect
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

This is an adaptation of a homily given 5 years ago to a different community.

St. Basil the Great
(Kyiv Cathedral)

In this season of light, the collect for Sts. Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen speaks of the light that they brought to Christ’s Church by their example and teaching.  They came from the same part of the Roman Empire, from Cappadocia in what’s now Turkey, and they were friends, admirers, and supporters of each other from their youth.  As the excerpt from Gregory in today’s Office of Readings indicates, they had a friendly rivalry—each promoting the excellence of the other.

Basil apparently was marked for greatness from the start.  Gregory was more retiring and had to be pushed toward ecclesiastical office, including by his friend.  Both became bishops, and both were staunch defenders of the divinity of Jesus Christ in the face of Arianism, a heresy that didn’t heed St. John’s teaching:  “Whoever denies the Son doesn’t have the Father, but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well” (1 John 2:23).

Arianism was politically correct at the time and caused a lot of grief particularly to Gregory, who had the misfortune, shall we say, of being made patriarch of Constantinople and thus thrust into the teeth of the Arian-inclined imperial court.  His theological writing was so sound and so clear that he became known as “the Theologian,” a title he retains in the Eastern Churches.  Nevertheless, the opposition in Constantinople induced his resignation after just a couple of years, and he retired to a life of recollection and hymn-writing in the friendlier neighborhood of his homeland.

St. Gregory the Theologian
(Kariye Camii, Istanbul)

Basil, on the other hand, didn’t encounter political difficulties.  He mixed a life of prayer with very active pastoral care and practical charity—supporting schools, founding hospitals, promoting monasticism (St. Benedict learned from him a century and a half later), and fostering liturgical life (composing texts for the Eucharist and teaching people to pray the Psalms).  He urged the political authorities to care for the poor and defended true doctrine in writing.

From Basil and Gregory we may learn, as the collect suggests, to pursue the truth with humility and to practice charity.  Humility helps us be loving brothers to each other, to staff, and to others whom Providence sends in our direction.  It takes humility to recognize the truth and not to identify it with just our own opinions.  Pursuing the truth, I suggest, includes taking a keen interest in contemporary events and everything else that touches Christ’s Church, human dignity, natural law, and the common good, so that, like doctors Basil and Gregory we may enlighten others with the Gospel.