Homily: January 2 - Saints Basil & Gregory

Today we celebrate two Saints, Basil and Gregory. They were both bishops, they were both born in the year 330, they both had an excellent education.  In fact, they were friends, in life, meeting at the most famous school of the time Ceaserea in Cappadocia, modern day Turkey. They were baptized together in the year 358.  They are two of the three Cappadocian Fathers of the Church, the other being Gregory of Nyssa, Saint Basil’s brother.

 These two friends, Basil and Gregory, eventually became Bishops.    But both started out as, “men of the world”.  Basil writes about frivolously wasting time on vanities, and “one day, like a man roused from deep sleep, I turned my eyes to the marvelous light of the truth of the Gospel, and I wept many tears over my miserable life.” 


Both Basil and Gregory were great friends and spent themselves without reserve in faithful service to the Church and in the virtues.  And perhaps that is the true measure of authentic friendship, a great friend helps you to become a saint, and imitate Christ, and serve God with more of yourself.  They help to bring out those qualities in you which are effective in building up the kingdom of God.  Have you been a good friend to those in your life, to your spouse, to your children?

Both men are doctors of the Church for their preaching and teaching of the faith.  Both faced the growing hostility of the Arians, those who denied the divinity of Christ, and both sought to mend divisions within the Church. 

Both were dedicated to the charitable works.  In fact, the charitable institutions Basil founded in his diocese of Ceasarea in Cappaddocia where the sick would come to receive treatment are the origin of our modern day hospitals.

The liturgy refers to these men as luminaries—they illuminate by their teaching and example what it means to lovingly profess the truth of the Gospel.  May they continue to assist us to seek to know the truth and live the truth, to spend ourselves in faithful service of God and our neighbor, and to be luminaries of the Gospel for the glory of God and salvation of souls.