Jan 2 Basil the Great, return to the blog

Jack and Thom
Good Morning
I love you.

Happy New Year. T-minus 36 days to new year’s but I’m starting early. I’m volunteered to write some things for the diocesan newspaper. We’ll know in January if I’m in their groove. That project has me thinking January not November. Writing and planning are both time warp exercises. I’m here now. Going to post this to the blog when I’m done. But, I’m thinking past Thanksgiving and Advent and Christmas right past, for tonight, the Feast of Mary Mother of God, and landing on Basil the Great, Patron of Hospital Administrators, whose feast is Jan 2nd.

January 2
Basil the Great b. 330 d. 379
Patron of hospital administrators

Thirty plus years as a hospital administrator cum CEO qua executive. The name changed a few times in this career – and still counting as I muddle down the last stretch. One of the advantages of a ‘professional’ job is that there’s less heavy lifting or running around as time goes by. Of course, you have to watch out what that does to the spread of your tush and the loss of flexibility and stretch in your muscles. You must protect that opportunity to continue to contribute by getting all your licenses and certificates along the way – and keep them current. It’s a guild-ed world we’re a part of.

It’s been a while since I’ve perused Butler’s Lives and the Saints for Young People and the online Angels and Saints plus the other Yahoo/Google search discoveries. With saints, it seems that the source material – from the person’s cause for sainthood – gets played over and over again with minor editing and a prayer or a comment tacked on to justify yet an other edited volume of saints. Everybody’s quoting each other but not quoting anyone – except the Saint himself. [Him, of course, is still grammatically correct if antiquated. It’s the Ancient Order of Hibernians not the Order of Ancient Hibernians, no matter how much grey hair in the crowd. You too/two are eligible. Come join us.]

A family of saints. In the fourth century not particularly uncommon. St Basil the Elder, The Great’s father, and St Emmelia, his mother. Would that you had one saint for a parent, never mind two. You remember that the early Christians greeted one another as ‘saint’. That probably helped them in their daily quest for sainthood, eternity with God. I hope that what little good I [we? If there were a we] did for you has stuck and grown in fertile ground. Remember, too, that it never is/was about me. The Goods always are gifts from God…. Basil the Great had nine brothers and sisters, several of whom were also recognized as saints. [Canonization came much later. The institutionalization and centralization of the process lost some of the holiness in how we come to recognize those whom we should emulate.] …. Basil the Great’s beginnings, like many saints’ stories, remind us that it does matter to whom God gives you as an infant. But, since we are all called to sainthood, everything God gave us to make that happen must be sufficient. Grab hold of those things that bring you closer to God then reinterpret the rest as the Holy Spirit’s sense of humor, Her hazing process.

Basil the Great got the best education: Caesarea, Constantinople, and Athens. Not unlike the education you were given from our Domestic Church to the Dominicans onward. Check out what Basil the Great did with the talents God gave him and the educational opportunities he received. Something to emulate. He hooked up with St Gregory Nazianzen in 352. It does matter who you connect to; whom you let latch on to you.

Basil the Great was a man of vast learning, constant activity, genuine eloquence, and immense charity. My constant lament is that we do not get the ‘how did he become this way’ from the blurbs I use for information. But the bios I perused don’t give us much of his youth or formation, either. The fourth century wasn’t much for children. Not like the stacks of cartons of pictures I have of you two; or the diaries written on your behalf. But. Vast learning is within your grasp – both by God’s gift of talent and the resources at your finger tips. Constant activity is tautological. I suppose they mean that the guy was hyper in all his efforts. Me, I’m more of a binger: binge fast and binge slow. Constancy is the better way to do well and to do good. Eloquence is something to develop. Cicero went to the sea shore with pebbles in his mouth. I don’t recommend that method. Eloquence is an important quality to have; develop it.

Immense Charity. Not just charity but immense charity. The gift of love. The gift of self. Immensely! Do what is necessary to know the man in the mirror as charitable. Realize that when you then come to Jesus and ask, what must I do to enter the kingdom of God, He’s going to ask for more: always more. Love is unceasing. Since the love to which we are responding, our ‘paying it forward’ is an infinite duty.

A little later, Gregory the Great opened a school of oratory and practiced law. He then decided to become a monk. He founded, and directed for five years, a monastery in Pontus. [wait, we haven’t reached his peak yet] It’s refreshing to know some one else, some one who made it all the way to the top, didn’t start out with a laser focus on who he was and what he was going to be when he grew up. Either road, the skittish darting of a water bug or the straight shot the honey bee takes to the flower, can get you where you’re called. So long as you’re listening to the call and daily follow that voice.

Basil the Great’s monastic rule has proved to be the most lasting, in the East. Imagine him and St Bernard?!. That’d be one heckuva dialogue to sit in on! When you get strapped for something to do or if you’re not fitting in under the rubric around you – go start your own thing. So long as the thing and the goal is holy it will be good AND it’ll be your rules. It’s so much easier to be king. The obedience thing is so much easier to assimilate when it’s your rule that must be followed. Still, there was Jesus, at Gethsemane, “not my will, by Yours”. That crisis of will and obedience, of goal and purpose, comes to us on a smaller stage, in our daily muddling through. No doubt that Jesus had his temptations as a child and as a man – to do it His way. He was, afterall, The Way; and he knew it. The Way to the Father to whom He must remain obedient in order to be The Way for us to get to Him too. It’s a logical circle: of love.

Basil the Great was ordained a priest after founding several more monasteries. It takes the will and The Way and the right product, not necessarily the expected credential in order to bring to the community that which is needed. In 370, Basil the Great was made bishop of Caesaria.
We must be for something. Our faith demands it. The love we receive requires it. To be for something is not enough. We can build up the good in ourselves, we can establish a good rule for living in a monastery or working in a business. It. Is. Not. Enough. The tempter does not take a rest. We must daily fight him off. And people will get things wrong. People will take the wrong actions. Even those determined to be good and do right. Unfortunately, there are also people who choose to do wrong for their own purposes contrary to our personal and common good. We must not only strive to prevent these errors with our good work, we must also stop the wrong beliefs, bad behavior, and systemic undermining of our good work: for us and the common good.

For Basil the Great, the big ticket was the battle of orthodoxy and Arianism – a belief system that undercut the essence of Christianity. Basil the Great helped lead the fight at Nicene [think Nicene Creed]. The subsequent denunciation of Arianism at the Council of Constantinople was in large measure due to the foundation Basil the Great laid. Today you might consider the war between a Culture of Life vs a Culture of Death to be the great fight.
Basil the Great not only fought against Arianism in his pursuit of converting our hearts to Christianity, Basil fought simony, aided the victims of drought and famine, strove for a better clergy, insisted on a rigid clerical discipline, fearlessly denounced evil wherever he detected it, and excommunicated those involved in the widespread prostitution traffic in Cappadocia. That was before lunch!

A lifetime dedicated to Christianity, the life of every Catholic, will bump up again and again, against the ravages of sin in our world, the ever presence of evil displayed in ways large and small. First be holy. Basil the Great, called great during his lifetime because of his monastic rule, was a man of great personal holiness. That’s a daily effort to be with God and in God and for God in everything you do yourself. I am evidence that all efforts are not successful. You are evidence that some efforts do good. Check your heart. Do you, like the sunflower, constantly turn your entire being to face the son/sun wherever you find Him?

In your lifelong pursuit of holiness, in your efforts to do good and leave the world a better place, pick your battles. What will you do to help us rid the world of evil? Will you fearlessly denounce evil wherever you detect it? Fearlessly! Do not be afraid, Jesus tells us. When we are doing the will of God, we have nothing to fear. Read the prophets.

Will you aid the people of drought and famine? The people of hurricanes or war? The people of sickness and suffering? The hungry and the homeless? The women who need help to bring their baby into the world, overcoming the temptation to terminate their pregnancy? The men on death row? Us old people others want to put out of their misery? Whom are you helping?

Pick a fight within the church; help us be a better Body of Christ. Support the priests who strive to guide us. Become a priest yourself. [not a bizarre idea at all!] Oppose simony. Rile against the men who defile our children. Speak out against the men who try to cover up those abominations. Shine Light, The Light, on the cockroaches and make them scurry away; stomp them out, squash them like the bugs they are!

Excommunicate from your life anyone who tries to lead you away from God, away from Church, or into an evil activity. Tell them Be gone! And pray for them. Put your efforts against them. Pray some more for them. Be prepared to welcome them back after their repentance and reconciliation. Nothing is forever – well, except God, the Love of God, and marriage….

We remember Basil the Great for ourselves not for him. He was a man of great holiness. He was accomplished in many ways. Let us rejoice and be glad in him/Him for the prayers Basil the Great offers for us today

I love you,
Dad
11-15-10