Memorial of Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops and Doctors of the Church

Lectionary: 205​

I, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received,

with all humility and gentleness, with patience,

bearing with one another through love,

striving to preserve the unity of the Spirit

through the bond of peace: one Body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism;

one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Today the Church celebrates two hugely influential bishops who were also close friends. They met as schoolmates and remained friends throughout their lives although their service of the Church would separate them by many miles. 

We remember them first for the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Greek philosophy had a hard time with Jewish scripture and traditions, and even more difficulty with the New Testament writings about God. They wondered how does God the Creator, whom Jesus called "Father," relate to Jesus the Son of God. Isn't there only one God? How is it that we believe that Jesus is God and the Father is God and there is only one God? Perhaps, some said, they are the same person appearing under different disguises. Perhaps Jesus was practicing ventriloquism when the crowds heard the Voice, "This is my Beloved Son!" 

But that was ludicrous and the Church knew it, from the children in the pews to the presiding bishops and priest. "Go back to your ivory tower and come up with something else!" they might have said to the bone-headed philosophers who would force God to fit their theories. It took a long time but the theologians finally created a new word, "trinity," to describe the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

Karl Rahner, a major German Catholic theologian of the 20th century, once sadly remarked that if the Church were to quietly renounce the doctrine of the Trinity, not many devotional tracts would have to be rewritten. That cardinal doctrine simply hasn't been held up before the minds and hearts of practicing Christians for many centuries -- which inevitably led to the spiritual dead ends of deism and atheism. 

The bishop/saints Basil and Gregory remind us to contemplate the Trinity; their intense friendship in many way models it for us. The Church is nothing if we have little affection for one another. We are not an ideological party, promoting some ideas about God. We are not a social club of like-minded individuals promoting a peculiar life-style. Those assemblies may tolerate members who hate each other, so long as they stand for a common cause. 

If the Church is not exactly friends to one another, as the Quakers have modeled their congregations, our fellowship should be marked by friendship, by the habitual respect, courtesy and deference friends give to one another. Friends can disagree with one another and have grand arguments, always with the understanding that nothing is more sacred than their friendship. Least of all their differing ideas! 

Basil and Gregory teach us that their separate lives are anchored in faith, and their friendship recognizes the image and likeness of God in each other. Hagiographers say the young men vied with each other, as to which would be more deferential. 

I like to remind myself I didn't join this Church, the Franciscan Order or the VA to show them how to be Christian. Rather, I want to learn from them what it means to love God as the Saints did, with all my heart, mind, soul and strength.