St. Leocritia

 Today the Church remembers Saint Leocritia, laywoman, of Cordoba, a martyr for the Faith during the Moorish occupation of southern Spain. 

Ora pro nobis.

Since the early eighth century, southern Spain was under the rule of the Moors. They were a Muslim people mostly from northern Africa who had invaded the Iberian peninsula, as well as Malta and Sicily. Cordoba in the Andalusia region of south central Spain was their capital. Under this Islamic rule, Christians were surprisingly not forced to convert, but they were highly taxed on all their properties. No disrespect (“blasphemy”) for their founder Mohammed was permitted, and anyone attempting to convert someone to Christianity (“apostasy”) faced the death penalty. Many Christians had moved north for safety, and the Christian population was, therefore, a small one, although Cordoba was one of the largest cities in Europe at the time.


Leocritia was a young woman who was the child of prominent Moorish parents living in Cordoba, born in the 840s AD. In 859 AD, after being taught the tenets of the Faith by a relative, she converted from Islam to Christianity and chose to be baptized. When her parents learned this, they were enraged and locked her in her own home to keep her from any further Christian influence. She wrote to Father Eulogius, a well known priest who had been elected bishop for his tireless work of teaching and evangelization, but who had not yet been installed as bishop at Toledo, asking what she should do. He advised her to be obedient to her parents, as she was a minor, but to look for an opportunity to flee north out of Muslim controlled territory. When she attended a wedding with her family, she saw her opportunity to escape, slipped away unnoticed and found her way to Father Eulogius. He was able to protect her for a time by changing her whereabouts regularly with Christians who shielded her from the Moorish authorities. One day, her location became known, and she and all who had helped her were arrested, including Eulogius. Both Eulogius and Leocritia were flogged and then put in prison, denied food and drink and offered their freedom if they would renounce Christianity. Both refused to abandon the Faith. Eulogius was beheaded on March 11, 859, and Leocritia met the same fate on March 15. Leocritia’s body was discarded into the Guadalquivir River, a river in Cordoba where numerous Christian martyrs before her had also been dumped. The Christian faithful secretly retrieved her remains, which were brought to Oviedo Cathedral about twenty years later. She shares a reliquary there with Eulogius, which can be venerated to this day in northern Spain.


In the years 851 to 859 AD, forty-eight Christians were put to death in Moor-occupied Spain (then known as Al-Andalus), all charged in some way with blasphemy or apostasy. They are collectively known as the Martyrs of Cordoba. Leocritia was beheaded on 15 March 859 AD after imprisonment, starvation, and being scourged, steadfastly refusing to deny Jesus. 

Almighty God, by whose grace and power your holy martyr Leocritia triumphed over suffering and was faithful even to death: Grant us, who now remember her in thanksgiving, to be so faithful in our witness to you in this world, that we may receive with her the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. 

Amen.

St. Leander of Seville

 Today the Church remembers St. Leander of Seville, Bishop.

Ora pro nobis.

The next time you recite the Nicene Creed at Mass, think of today’s saint. For it was Leander of Seville who, as bishop, introduced the practice in the sixth century AD. He saw it as a way to help reinforce the faith of his people and as an antidote against the heresy of Arianism, which denied the divinity of Christ.

St. Leander was born at Cartagena, Spain, in 534 AD, to Severianus and Theodora. St. Isidore and Fulgentius, both bishops, were his brothers, and his sister, Florentina, also numbered among the saints, was an abbess who directed forty convents and one thousand nuns.

Leander moved to Seville as a young man and became a monk. He spent three years in prayer and study. At the end of that tranquil period he was ordained and consecrated the bishop of the diocese of Seville. For the rest of his life he worked strenuously to fight against heresy. He was instrumental in converting the two sons, Hermenegild and Reccared, of the Arian Visigothic King Leovigild. This action earned him the kings's wrath and exile to Constantinople, where he met and became close friends of the Papal Legate, the future Pope Gregory the Great. It was Leander who suggested that Gregory write the famous commentary on the Book of Job called the Moralia.

The death of the anti-Christian king in 586 AD helped Leander’s cause, and he returned to Seville. Once back home, he and the new king Reccared worked hand in hand to establish orthodoxy against the Arians of Spain. Leander succeeded in persuading many Arian bishops to change their loyalties. The third local Council of Toledo (over which he presided in 589 AD) affirmed the consubstantiality of the three Persons of the Trinity. Leander's unerring wisdom and unflagging dedication to Christian orthodoxy led the Visigoths and the Suevi back to the true Faith and obtained the gratitude of Gregory the Great. The saintly bishop also composed an influential Rule for nuns and was the first to introduce the Nicene Creed at Mass.

By the end of his life, Leander had helped Christianity flourish in Spain at a time of political and religious upheaval. Worn out by his tireless work in the cause of the orthodox Faith, Leander died around 600 AD and was succeeded in the See of Seville by his brother Isidore. The Spanish Church honors Leander as the Doctor of the Faith.

O God, who by thy Holy Spirit dost give to some the word of wisdom, to others the word of knowledge, and to others the word of faith: We praise thy Name for the gifts of grace manifested in thy servant Leander, and we pray that thy Church may never be destitute of such gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the same Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, forever and ever. 

Amen.

St. Gregory the Great

 Today, the Church remembers Pope St. Gregory the Great.

Ora pro nobis.

Pope Saint Gregory I (c. A.D.540 – 12 March 604), commonly known as Saint Gregory the Great, was Pope of the Catholic Church from 3 September 590 to 12 March 604 AD. He is famous for instigating the first recorded large-scale mission from Rome, the Gregorian Mission, to convert a pagan people to Christianity. Gregory is also well known for his writings, which were more prolific than those of any of his predecessors as pope.

A Roman senator's son and himself the Prefect of Rome at the age of 30 years, Gregory tried the monastery but soon returned to active public life, ending his life and the century as pope. Although he was the first pope from a monastic background, his prior political experiences may have helped him to be a talented administrator, who successfully established papal supremacy. During his papacy, he greatly surpassed with his administration the emperors in improving the welfare of the people of Rome. He also was an able theologian, and successfully challenged the theological views of Patriarch Eutychius of Constantinople before the emperor Tiberius II. Gregory regained papal authority in Spain and France and sent missionaries to England. The realignment of barbarian allegiance to Rome from their Arian Christian alliances shaped medieval Europe. Gregory saw Franks, Lombards, and Visigoths align with Rome in religion.

Gregory was born into a period of upheaval in Italy. From A.D. 542 the so-called Plague of Justinian swept through the provinces of the empire, including Italy. The plague caused famine, panic, and sometimes rioting. In some parts of the country, over 1/3 of the population was wiped out or destroyed, with heavy spiritual and emotional effects on the people of the Empire. Politically, although the Western Roman Empire had long since vanished in favour of the Gothic kings of Italy, during the A.D. 540s Italy was gradually retaken from the Goths by Justinian I, emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire ruling from Constantinople. As the fighting was mainly in the north, the young Gregory probably saw little of it. Totila sacked and vacated Rome in A.D. 546, destroying most of its population, but in A.D. 549 he invited those who were still alive to return to the empty and ruined streets. It has been hypothesized that young Gregory and his parents retired during that intermission to their Sicilian estates, to return in A.D. 549. The war was over in Rome by A.D. 552, and a subsequent invasion of the Franks was defeated in A.D. 554. After that, there was peace in Italy, and the appearance of restoration, except that the central government now resided in Constantinople.

On his father's death, Gregory converted his family villa into a monastery dedicated to the apostle Saint Andrew (after his death it was rededicated as San Gregorio Magno al Celio). In his life of contemplation, Gregory concluded that "in that silence of the heart, while we keep watch within through contemplation, we are as if asleep to all things that are without."

Gregory is known for his administrative system of charitable relief of the poor at Rome. They were predominantly refugees from the incursions of the Lombards. The philosophy under which he devised this system is that the wealth belonged to the poor and the church was only its steward. He received lavish donations from the wealthy families of Rome, who, following his own example, were eager, by doing so, to expiate their sins. He gave alms equally as lavishly both individually and en masse.

The state in which Gregory became pope in A.D. 590 was a ruined one. The Lombards held the better part of Italy. Their predations had brought the economy to a standstill. They camped nearly at the gates of Rome. The city was packed with refugees from all walks of life, who lived in the streets and had few of the necessities of life. The seat of government was far from Rome in Constantinople, which appeared unable to undertake the relief of Italy. The pope had sent emissaries, including Gregory, asking for assistance, to no avail. In A.D. 590, Gregory could wait for Constantinople no longer. He organized the resources of the church into an administration for general relief. Gregory began by aggressively requiring his churchmen to seek out and relieve needy persons and reprimanded them if they did not. To pay for his increased expenses he liquidated the investment properties of the Church, including his own vast holdings of land, and paid the expenses in cash. 

Money, however, was no substitute for food in a city that was on the brink of famine. Even the wealthy were going hungry in their villas. The church now owned between 1,300 and 1,800 square miles (3,400 and 4,700 km2) of revenue-generating farmland divided into large sections called patrimonia. It produced goods of all kinds, which were sold, but Gregory intervened and had the goods shipped to Rome for distribution.

Distributions to qualified persons were monthly. However, a certain proportion of the population lived in the streets or were too ill or infirm to pick up their monthly food supply. To them Gregory sent out a small army of charitable persons, mainly monks, every morning with prepared food. It is said that he would not dine until the indigent were fed. When he did dine he shared the family table, which he had saved (and which still exists), with 12 indigent guests. To the needy living in wealthy homes he sent meals he had cooked with his own hands as gifts to spare them the indignity of receiving charity. These and other good deeds and charitable frame of mind completely won the hearts and minds of the Roman people. They now looked to the papacy for government, ignoring the rump state at Constantinople, calling him a fool for his pacifist dealings with the Lombards. 

Pope Gregory had strong convictions on missions: "Almighty God places good men in authority that He may impart through them the gifts of His mercy to their subjects. And this we find to be the case with the British over whom you have been appointed to rule, that through the blessings bestowed on you the blessings of heaven might be bestowed on your people also." 

He is credited with re-energizing the Church's missionary work among the non-Christian peoples of northern Europe. He is most famous for sending a mission, often called the Gregorian mission, under Augustine of Canterbury, prior of Saint Andrew's, where he had perhaps succeeded Gregory, to evangelize the pagan Anglo-Saxons of England. It seems that the pope had never forgotten the English slaves whom he had once seen in the Roman Forum. The mission was successful, and it was from England that missionaries later set out for the Netherlands and Germany. The preaching of non-heretical Christian faith and the elimination of all deviations from it was a key element in Gregory's worldview, and it constituted one of the major continuing policies of his pontificate.

Throughout the Middle Ages he was also known as "the Father of Christian Worship" because of his exceptional efforts in revising the Roman liturgical worship of his day.

Blessed Gregory, we live in an age of poverty, famine, and war; and in the Church we face heterodoxy, even apostasy, and often the debasement of worship, even as did you in your earthly life. You who worked so tirelessly for the plight of the hungry, the poor, and refugees; for making peace with enemies; for sending out missionaries to share the orthodox and catholic Faith with those who had never head the Good News in Jesus; and labored for the enrichment and ennoblement of Christian worship. Amen.

Almighty and merciful God, you raised up Gregory of Rome to be a servant of the servants of God, and inspired him to send missionaries to preach the Gospel to the English people: Preserve in your Church the catholic and apostolic faith they taught, that your people, being fruitful in every good work, may receive the crown of glory that never fades away; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. 

Amen.

St. Anastasia the Patrician

Today the Church remembers St. Anastasia the Patrician

Ora pro nobis.

Anastasia the Patrician was the daughter of an Egyptian nobleman and a lady-in-waiting in the court of Emperor Justinian in Constantinople. Justinian pursued her amorously, and she fled the court to take up a religious vocation in a convent in Alexandria, Egypt. When Justinian’s consort, Theodora, died, Anastasia had to flee again, as he was seeking her. She went out into the Egyptian desert where she was allowed to dress as a monk and to remain in place. For twenty-eight years Anastasia remained in solitude in the desert, in constant prayer.

She arrived at a place called Pempton, near Alexandria, where she founded a monastery which would later be named after her. She lived with monastic discipline and wove cloth to support herself.

Following the death of Theodora in 548 AD, Justinian attempted to get Anastasia to return to Constantinople, to no avail. Instead, Anastasia left for Scetis, looking for help from Abba Daniel, hegumen of the monastery at that time. To safeguard Anastasia, he let her move into a laura, or monastery cell, 18 miles from Scetis in the desert, and dress as a (male) monk to hide her from the emperor and take up the life of a hermit at a time when this was only permitted of men. He visited her every week and ensured that one of his disciples supplied her with jugs of water. Anastasia dwelt in seclusion for twenty-eight years.

In 576 AD, aware of her approaching death, she wrote several words for Abba Daniel on a piece of broken pottery and placed it at the entrance to the cave. The disciple found an ostracon with the words “Bring the spades and come here.” When Daniel heard this, he knew Anastasia was near death. He went to visit her with his disciple and to give her communion and hear her last words. Daniel revealed the full details of her story to his disciple after her death.

Her story survives in one recension of the Copto-Arabic Synaxarion and by a tale of Daniel of Scetis. Her feast day is 10 March in the Eastern Orthodox, Latin and Eastern Catholic Churches, and on 26 Tobi in the calendar of the Coptic Church, the date of her death given in the Ethiopic Life of Daniel of Scetis.

O God, whose blessed Son became poor that we through his poverty might be rich: Deliver us from an inordinate love of this world, that we, inspired by the devotion of your servant Anastasia, may serve you with singleness of heart, and attain to the riches of the age to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. the Church

 remembers St. Anastasia the Patrician

Ora pro nobis.

Anastasia the Patrician was the daughter of an Egyptian nobleman and a lady-in-waiting in the court of Emperor Justinian in Constantinople. Justinian pursued her amorously, and she fled the court to take up a religious vocation in a convent in Alexandria, Egypt. When Justinian's consort, Theodora, died, Anastasia had to flee again, as he was seeking her. She went out into the Egyptian desert where she was allowed to dress as a monk and to remain in place. For twenty-eight years Anastasia remained in solitude in the desert, in constant prayer.

She arrived at a place called Pempton, near Alexandria, where she founded a monastery which would later be named after her. She lived with monastic discipline and wove cloth to support herself.

Following the death of Theodora in 548 AD, Justinian attempted to get Anastasia to return to Constantinople, to no avail. Instead, Anastasia left for Scetis, looking for help from Abba Daniel, hegumen of the monastery at that time. To safeguard Anastasia, he let her move into a laura, or monastery cell, 18 miles from Scetis in the desert, and dress as a (male) monk to hide her from the emperor and take up the life of a hermit at a time when this was only permitted of men. He visited her every week and ensured that one of his disciples supplied her with jugs of water. Anastasia dwelt in seclusion for twenty-eight years.

In 576 AD, aware of her approaching death, she wrote several words for Abba Daniel on a piece of broken pottery and placed it at the entrance to the cave. The disciple found an ostracon with the words "Bring the spades and come here." When Daniel heard this, he knew Anastasia was near death. He went to visit her with his disciple and to give her communion and hear her last words. Daniel revealed the full details of her story to his disciple after her death.

Her story survives in one recension of the Copto-Arabic Synaxarion and by a tale of Daniel of Scetis. Her feast day is 10 March in the Eastern Orthodox, Latin and Eastern Catholic Churches, and on 26 Tobi in the calendar of the Coptic Church, the date of her death given in the Ethiopic Life of Daniel of Scetis.

O God, whose blessed Son became poor that we through his poverty might be rich: Deliver us from an inordinate love of this world, that we, inspired by the devotion of your servant Anastasia, may serve you with singleness of heart, and attain to the riches of the age to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Ora pro nobis.

Anastasia the Patrician was the daughter of an Egyptian nobleman and a lady-in-waiting in the court of Emperor Justinian in Constantinople. Justinian pursued her amorously, and she fled the court to take up a religious vocation in a convent in Alexandria, Egypt. When Justinian's consort, Theodora, died, Anastasia had to flee again, as he was seeking her. She went out into the Egyptian desert where she was allowed to dress as a monk and to remain in place. For twenty-eight years Anastasia remained in solitude in the desert, in constant prayer.

She arrived at a place called Pempton, near Alexandria, where she founded a monastery which would later be named after her. She lived with monastic discipline and wove cloth to support herself.

Following the death of Theodora in 548 AD, Justinian attempted to get Anastasia to return to Constantinople, to no avail. Instead, Anastasia left for Scetis, looking for help from Abba Daniel, hegumen of the monastery at that time. To safeguard Anastasia, he let her move into a laura, or monastery cell, 18 miles from Scetis in the desert, and dress as a (male) monk to hide her from the emperor and take up the life of a hermit at a time when this was only permitted of men. He visited her every week and ensured that one of his disciples supplied her with jugs of water. Anastasia dwelt in seclusion for twenty-eight years.

In 576 AD, aware of her approaching death, she wrote several words for Abba Daniel on a piece of broken pottery and placed it at the entrance to the cave. The disciple found an ostracon with the words "Bring the spades and come here." When Daniel heard this, he knew Anastasia was near death. He went to visit her with his disciple and to give her communion and hear her last words. Daniel revealed the full details of her story to his disciple after her death.

Her story survives in one recension of the Copto-Arabic Synaxarion and by a tale of Daniel of Scetis. Her feast day is 10 March in the Eastern Orthodox, Latin and Eastern Catholic Churches, and on 26 Tobi in the calendar of the Coptic Church, the date of her death given in the Ethiopic Life of Daniel of Scetis.

O God, whose blessed Son became poor that we through his poverty might be rich: Deliver us from an inordinate love of this world, that we, inspired by the devotion of your servant Anastasia, may serve you with singleness of heart, and attain to the riches of the age to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Today the Church remembers St. Anastasia the Patrician

Ora pro nobis.

Anastasia the Patrician was the daughter of an Egyptian nobleman and a lady-in-waiting in the court of Emperor Justinian in Constantinople. Justinian pursued her amorously, and she fled the court to take up a religious vocation in a convent in Alexandria, Egypt. When Justinian's consort, Theodora, died, Anastasia had to flee again, as he was seeking her. She went out into the Egyptian desert where she was allowed to dress as a monk and to remain in place. For twenty-eight years Anastasia remained in solitude in the desert, in constant prayer.

She arrived at a place called Pempton, near Alexandria, where she founded a monastery which would later be named after her. She lived with monastic discipline and wove cloth to support herself.

Following the death of Theodora in 548 AD, Justinian attempted to get Anastasia to return to Constantinople, to no avail. Instead, Anastasia left for Scetis, looking for help from Abba Daniel, hegumen of the monastery at that time. To safeguard Anastasia, he let her move into a laura, or monastery cell, 18 miles from Scetis in the desert, and dress as a (male) monk to hide her from the emperor and take up the life of a hermit at a time when this was only permitted of men. He visited her every week and ensured that one of his disciples supplied her with jugs of water. Anastasia dwelt in seclusion for twenty-eight years.

In 576 AD, aware of her approaching death, she wrote several words for Abba Daniel on a piece of broken pottery and placed it at the entrance to the cave. The disciple found an ostracon with the words "Bring the spades and come here." When Daniel heard this, he knew Anastasia was near death. He went to visit her with his disciple and to give her communion and hear her last words. Daniel revealed the full details of her story to his disciple after her death.

Her story survives in one recension of the Copto-Arabic Synaxarion and by a tale of Daniel of Scetis. Her feast day is 10 March in the Eastern Orthodox, Latin and Eastern Catholic Churches, and on 26 Tobi in the calendar of the Coptic Church, the date of her death given in the Ethiopic Life of Daniel of Scetis.

O God, whose blessed Son became poor that we through his poverty might be rich: Deliver us from an inordinate love of this world, that we, inspired by the devotion of your servant Anastasia, may serve you with singleness of heart, and attain to the riches of the age to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Gregory of Nyssa

 Today, the Church remembers and gives thanks for one of the greatest Christian thinkers, teachers, and saints: Gregory of Nyssa.

Ora pro nobis.

Gregory of Nyssa (c. A.D. 335 – 395), was bishop of Nyssa from 372 to 376 and again from 378 until his death. Gregory, his elder brother, Basil of Caesarea, and their friend Gregory of Nazianzus, are collectively known as the Cappadocian Fathers.

Gregory lacked the administrative ability of his brother Basil or the contemporary influence of Gregory of Nazianzus, but he was an erudite theologian who made significant contributions to the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity and the Nicene Creed. 

Gregory's parents had suffered persecution for their faith: he writes that they "had their goods confiscated for confessing Christ." Gregory's maternal grandmother, Macrina the Elder is also revered as a saint and his maternal grandfather was a martyr as Gregory put it "killed by Imperial wrath” under the persecution of the Roman Emperor Maximinus II. 

Gregory's temperament is said to have been quiet and meek, in contrast to his brother Basil, who was known to be much more outspoken.

Gregory was first educated at home, by his mother Emmelia and sister Macrina. Little is known of what further education he received. It seems likely that he continued his studies in Caesarea, where he read classical literature, philosophy and perhaps medicine. Gregory himself claimed that his only teachers were Basil, "Paul, John and the rest of the Apostles and prophets.”

Gregory was a highly original and sophisticated thinker, and his writings are often difficult to classify. This is often due to the lack of systematic structure and the presence of terminological inconsistencies in Gregory's work.

Gregory, following Basil, defined the Trinity as "one essence in three persons", the formula adopted by the Council of Constantinople in 381. Like the other Cappadocian Fathers, he was a “homoousian”, a believer in the essential oneness of God, three in person but one in being. According to Gregory, the differences between the three persons of the Trinity reside in their relationships with each other, and the triune nature of God is revealed through divine action (despite the unity of God in His action).

Gregory was one of the first theologians to argue that God is infinite. His main argument for the infinity of God is that God's goodness is an essential characteristic of God, and that being limitless it follows that God is also limitless. An important consequence of Gregory's belief in the infinity of God is his belief that God, as limitless, is essentially incomprehensible to the limited minds of created beings, in contrast to some of his contemporaries, and of many preachers today. In his ‘Life of Moses’,  Gregory writes: "...every concept that comes from some comprehensible image, by an approximate understanding and by guessing at the Divine nature, constitutes a idol of God and does not proclaim God."

Gregory's theology was thus apophatic: that is, he proposed that God should be defined in terms of what we know He is not rather than what we might speculate Him to be. Accordingly, he taught that due to God's infinitude, a created being can never reach an absolute understanding of God, and thus for man in both life and the afterlife there is a constant progression towards the unreachable knowledge of God, as the individual continually transcends all which has been reached before. In the ‘Life of Moses’, Gregory speaks of three stages of this spiritual growth: initial darkness of ignorance, then spiritual illumination, and finally a darkness of the mind in mystic contemplation of the God who cannot be comprehended.

Gregory seems to have believed so deeply in the love of God that ultimately nothing and no one in creation could fail to accept God’s love, and so believed that humankind will be collectively returned to sinlessness, while still paradoxically maintaining the orthodox belief in the necessary sacrament of Baptism for salvation, and that human free will, even in the full presence of God, could still choose to remain separated from God. 

Gregory's beliefs about human nature were founded on the essential distinction between the created and uncreated. Man is a material creation, and thus limited, but created with limitless capacity in that his immortal soul has an indefinite capacity to grow closer to God through the imitation of Christ. Gregory also held such a high view of humankind the he strongly believed that the soul is created simultaneous to the creation of the body at conception, and that unborn children were thus full and true persons made in the image of God. This also informed his teachings about the inherent evil of slavery. 

To Gregory, the human being is exceptional, being created in the image of God. Humanity is theomorphic both in having self-awareness and free will, the latter which gives each individual existential power, because to Gregory, in disregarding God one negates one's own existence. In his ‘Song of Songs’, Gregory metaphorically describes human lives as paintings created by apprentices to a master: the apprentices (the human wills) imitate their master's work (the life of Christ) with beautiful colors (virtues), and thus man strives to be a reflection of Christ.

Gregory was one of the first Christian voices to say that slavery as an institution was inherently evil and sinful. He believed that slavery, as did abortion, violated mankind's inherent worth, and the nature of humanity to be free; a departure from classical, and Judeo-Christian precedent which he rooted in Genesis, arguing that man was given mastery of animals but not of humans. His was the first and only sustained critique of the institution of slavery and infanticide made in the ancient world. 

Anthony Meredith writes of Gregory's mystical and apophatic writings in his book Gregory of Nyssa (The Early Church Fathers) (1999):

"Gregory has often been credited with the discovery of mystical theology, or rather with the perception that darkness is an appropriate symbol under which God can be discussed. There is much truth in this....Gregory seems to have been the first Christian writer to have made this important point..."

J. Kameron Carter writes about Gregory's stance on slavery, in the book Race a Theological Account (2008):

"What interests me is the defining features of Gregory's vision of the just society: his unequivocal stance against 'the peculiar institution of slavery' and his call for the manumission of all slaves. I am interested in reading Gregory as a fourth century abolitionist intellectual....His outlook surpassed not only St. Paul's more moderate (but to be fair to Paul, in his moment, revolutionary) stance on the subject but also those of all ancient intellectuals -- Pagan, Jewish and Christian - from Aristotle to Cicero and from Augustine in the Christian West to his contemporary, the golden mouthed preacher himself, John Crysotom in the East. Indeed, the world would have to wait another fifteen centuries -- until the nineteenth century, late into the modern abolitionist movement -- before such an unequivocal stance against slavery would appear again."

Blessed Gregory, we remain still so mired in sin that there are more humans being held in slavery, or murdered as unborn infants, today than at any time in recorded history. There are so many who believe that they know with certainty the mind of God that they invoke the Holy One to do terrible acts of violence, or lead them away from the true Faith and lead many astray. 

That we, made in the image of God, called to pursue the imitation of Christ and work for the freedom, life, and salvation of all peoples, might return in all humility to the mystical/interior meditation upon the absolute love of God... ora pro nobis.

Amen.

Almighty God, you have revealed to your Church your eternal Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in Trinity of Persons: Give us grace that, like your bishop Gregory of Nyssa, we may continue steadfast in the confession of this faith, and constant in our worship of you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; for you live and reign forever and ever. 

Amen.

A Holy Lent

 Instructions for a holy Lent

“Do you fast? Give me proof of it by your works.

If you see a poor man, take pity on him.

If you see a friend being honored, do not envy him.

Do not let only your mouth fast, but also the eye and the ear and the feet and the hands and all the members of our bodies.

Let the hands fast, by being free of greed.

Let the feet fast, by ceasing to run after sin.

Let the eyes fast, by disciplining them not to glare at that which is sinful.

Let the ear fast, by not listening to evil talk and gossip.

Let the mouth fast from foul words and unjust criticism.

For what good is it if we abstain from birds and fish, but bite and devour our brothers?

May HE who came to the world to save sinners strengthen us to complete the fast with humility, have mercy on us and save us.”

- St John Chrysostom, 347 AD – 14 September 407 AD

St. Perpetua and Companions

 Today the Church remembers Perpetua and her companions, martyred together in Carthage in the year 203 A.D.

Vibia Perpetua was a married noblewoman, said to have been 22 years old at the time of her death, and mother of an infant she was nursing. Felicitas, a slave imprisoned with her and pregnant at the time, was martyred with her. They were put to death along with others at Carthage in the Roman province of Africa.

According to surviving letters that she and an eyewitness wrote, a slave named Revocatus, his fellow slave Felicitas, the two free men Saturninus and Secundulus, and Perpetua, who were catechumens, that is, Christians being instructed in the faith but not yet baptized, were arrested and executed at the military games in celebration of the Emperor Septimus Severus's birthday. To this group was added a man named Saturus, who voluntarily went before the magistrate and proclaimed himself a Christian.

Perpetua’s execution, who was an aristocratic Roman citizen, alongside slaves demonstrated Christianity’s ability to transcend social distinctions, in contrast to the inequality that pervaded Roman religion and society. As Perpetua and Felicitas were equal in martyrdom despite differences in class, they made the dramatic statement that Christianity transcended all social norms and structure. In Christ, through one Faith, one baptism, and equally sharing the Sacrament of his Body and Blood, all are made one.

May the Church live up to the courage of Perpetua and her companions, not just in facing death together, but in living as equals in life when everyone and everything told them that they were not equals.

Blessed Perpetua, Felicitas, Revocatus, Saturninus, Secundulus, and Saturus...orate pro nobis.

O God the King of saints, you strengthened your servants Perpetua and Felicitas and their companions to make a good confession, staunchly resisting, for the cause of Christ, the claims of human affection, and encouraging one another in their time of trial: Grant that we who cherish their blessed memory may share their pure and steadfast faith, and win with them the palm of victory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen.