Many of us who had thought ourselves religious awoke to the limitations of this attitude. Refusing to place God first, we had deprived ourselves of God's help.
- Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 75
I have been reading through this AA devotional guide again lately. I don't always get to it. The reflections are brief, perfect for a quick moment as I rise in the morning or when I need just a little extra boost in the afternoon.
My pride is great. It always has been. It's a bit misplaced, however, since I am the Grand Underachiever. I typically have pride in what I have screwed up, messed up, misplaced, misused, misunderstood etc. I shy away from anything I might have done that is positive. It's a problem in either case. This is one way that my pride reveals itself.
Pride is always the sin of not putting God first. We can find all sorts of things to put in the place of God and God's grace. Money works. So too does activity or alcohol (substance of choice here) or, as this quotation suggests, religion can take that place. I struggle with this myself.
If I just hold to the formula, I will not even need God.
If I just paint this just so, pray these words, stand here, bow there, then I will not be bothered by the almighty.
You see, I think that if I fill in the blanks, then God will leave me alone. I will have fulfilled my obligation somehow. But it just does not work that way. If I truly fulfill my obligation, then I will find myself in the very midst of God being changed, transformed to God's purposes. Yes, there is peace in ritual and rite. Certainly, but there is also no escape from God if I participate in them truly and honestly.
Sometimes I won't put God first.
Sometimes I am simply afraid of what God might ask of me.
Basil the Great is remembered as the founder of Eastern monasticism. All Eastern Orthodox monks are Basilian monks and follow a variation of the monastic rule that he outlined. However, it is often overlooked that the community of monks organized by Basil was preceded and inspired by a community of nuns organized by his sister, Macrina.Posted by tripp at July 19, 2007 04:40 PMMacrina the Elder lived in the days of the Emperor Diocletian, who made a determined effort to destroy the Christian faith. She and her husband fled into hiding, and survived into the time of Constantine. One of their sons, Basil the Elder, and his wife Emmelia, had several distinguished sons, including Basil the Great (14 June), Gregory of Nyssa (9 March), Peter of Sebastea, Naucratios, and Dios of Antioch.
Their oldest offspring, however, was their daughter Macrina (called Macrina the Younger to distinguish her from her grandmother). She was betrothed at the age of twelve, after the custom of the day, but when her fiance died, she determined to devote her life to prayer and contemplation and to works of charity. After the death of her father, she and her mother formed a community of women who shared her goals. She often brought poor and hungry women home to be fed, clothed, nursed, or otherwise taken care of, and many eventually joined the community, as did many women of means.
After the death of their parents, Macrina was chiefly responsible for the upbringing of her ten younger brothers. When they were disposed to be conceited about their intellectual accomplishments, she deflated them with affectionate but pointed jibes. Her example encouraged some of them to pursue the monastic ideal, and to found monastic communities for men. (Dios founded one of the most celebrated monasteries in Constantinople.) Three of them (Basil, Gregory, Peter) became bishops, and all of them were leading contenders for the faith of Nicea against the Arians.
Gregory, in his Life of Macrina, records his last visit with her, and her farewell speech and her prayers and teachings about the resurrection.
Gregory of Nyssa, his brother Basil the Great (14 June), and Basil's best friend Gregory of Nazianzus (9 May), are known collectively as the Cappadocian Fathers. They were a major force in the triumph of the Athanasian position at the Council of Constantinople in 381. Gregory of Nyssa tends to be overshadowed by the other two.
Gregory of Nyssa was born in Caesarea, the capital of Cappadocia (central Turkey) in about 334, the younger brother of Basil the Great and of Macrina (19 July), and of several other distinguished persons. As a youth, he was at best a lukewarm Christian. However, when he was twenty, some of the relics of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (10 March) were transferred to a chapel near his home, and their presence made a deep impression on him, confronting him with the fact that to acknowledge God at all is to acknowledge His right to demand a total commitment. Gregory became an active and fervent Christian. He considered the priesthood, decided it was not for him, became a professional orator like his father, married, and settled down to the life of a Christian layman. However, his brother Basil and his friend Gregory of Nazianzus persuaded him to reconsider, and he became a priest in about 362.
His brother Basil, who had become archbishop of Caesarea in 370, was engaged in a struggle with the Arian Emperor Valens, who was trying to stamp out belief in the deity of Christ. Basil desperately needed the votes and support of Athanasian bishops, and he maneuvered his friend Gregory into the bishopric of Sasima, and (in about 371) his brother Gregory into the bishopric of Nyssa, a small town about ten miles from Caesarea. Neither one wanted to be a bishop, neither was suited to be a bishop, and both were furious with Basil.) Gregory did not get along well with his flock, was falsely accused of embezzling church funds, fled the scene in about 376, and did not return until after the death of Valens about two years later.
In 379, Basil died, having lived to see the death of Valens and the end of the persecution. Shortly thereafter, Macrina died. Gregory was with her in the last few days of her life. Afterwards, he took to writing sermons and treatises on theology and philosophy. His philosophy was a form of Christian Platonism. In his approach to the Scriptures, he was heavily influenced by Origen, and his writings on the Trinity and the Incarnation build on and develop insights found in germ in the writings of his brother Basil. But he is chiefly remembered as a writer on the spiritual life, on the contemplation of God, not only in private prayer and meditation, but in corporate worship and in the sacramental life of the Church.
His treatise On The Making of Man deals with God as Creator, and with the world as a good thing, as something that God takes delight in, and that ought to delight us. His Great Catechism is esteemed as a work of systematic theology. His Commentary on the Song of Songs is a work of contemplative, devotional, mystical theology. [James Kiefer, abridged]link
I just put in a request for a fireplace to be added to my cubicle at work after seeing your photos.
Of course, the board will have to approve of it.
But I think it is an excellent energy saver since it gets so cold in NYC in the winter.
Posted by: teresa at July 20, 2007 03:36 PM