Tuesday, 1/2/18
St. Basil and St. Gregory were bishops born around
the year 350 .A.D. in what is now south central Turkey. Basil had a sister St.
Makrina and a brother Gregory of Nyssa.
St. Basil, along with his
brother Gregory of Nyssa and their friend Gregory of Naziansen, had studied
together both in Alexandria and Constantinople; and the
three them ended up
as bishops of near-by dioceses.
As the head of their family, Basil
and Gregory had a sister, Makrina, who is also honored as a saint. Makrina, who
lived like a nun, invited Basil and the two Gregory's to live and study and
pray at her estate in Cappadocia. She encouraged them to refine the Church's teaching
on the Holy Spirit and the Trinity.
Makrina is admired and loved
as a Patron of Christian wisdom. And, If you will permit me; I would like to
compare her to Lady Gregory who fostered all the topnotch productions of Irish
Literature.
A century and a half ago,
when Ireland was parceled out to Protestant landlords, Augusta Gregory was
raised on the Coole Estate in Galway, but with her parents always away, Augusta
was raised by an Irish nanny who filled her imagination with Irish folklore.
She was married young, and
she was till young when Lord Gregory died, leaving her to do as she liked. What
she liked doing was giving encouragement to men who would give Ireland much of
the Nineteenth Century' s finest poetry and drama.
Once in roaming around the
Coole Estate, I came across a tree on which Yeats, Synge and O'Casey had carved
their names.
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