The Narthex

When Jesus performed miraculous healings, those he cured -- along with their friends, relations, and all observers -- gave praise to God. Beginning the moment of their cure, these men, women and children would talk nonstop about it. The man with leprosy “started talking about it freely and telling the…

Let us first consider that Jesus was not always in the immediate presence of the people He cured, just like the prophet Elisha who directed Naaman to go to the River Jordan. Naaman was incensed with Elisha. “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and…

You get pretty used to the idea that Jesus worked miracles, don’t you? I do. For me, a fresh look was prompted when I noticed a detail from Matthew’s Gospel (15:29-31):

Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, went up on the mountain, and sat down there. Great…

In my previous post I discussed one way Jesus' statement about the rich man may have overwhelmed His audience. There is a second way. Jesus did not say (in Matt. 19:24, Mark 10:25; Luke 18:25) how much property makes one so rich that he is like the camel. We all…

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God (Matt. 19:24). Our Lord delighted His listeners with His rhetoric. These days the word rhetoric is used pejoratively, or derisively, to refer to language lacking…

One of the definitions of topsy-turvy is the “inversion of the natural order.” This is what we are experiencing in our culture, from the top down. As a recent article by Victor Davis Hanson states, “the Establishment Is the Revolution” (see link below). It is not the protestor in the street…

The first few decades of Gothic Revival master Augustus Pugin's life were filled with activity and strain, and there would be more obstacles and tribulations. Pugin had periods of blindness. His second wife died. (He remarried. His third wife not only cared for his six children by his two previous…

Augustus Welby Pugin is in the news these days in the United Kingdom because he designed Big Ben, icon for the British nation, whose scaffolding has now come down after two years and will reopen this spring. Pugin (1812-1852; his French name is pronounced “PEW-jin”) was THE Gothic Revivalist. A…

Let us familiarize ourselves with the titles accorded these Cappadocian bishops we have studied: Basil, Gregory, and Gregory of Nyssa. St. Gregory of Nyssa is considered the philosopher and mystic; he wrote less than the other two but perhaps more deeply. An ecumenical council in 787 pronounced him “Father of…

Following the council of 381, Gregory returned to Nazianzus. For Lent, he gave up speaking! (Newman, Historical Sketches, p. 86) In his autobiographical poem, Gregory used some harsh words to describe his relationship with Basil. Yet, at the same time that he wrote the poem, he delivered a funeral oration…

Until Gregory’s father’s death in 374, Gregory stayed in Nazianzus. Despite the rupture between Gregory and Basil, Basil attended Gregory’s father’s funeral. (Gregory’s father had always supported making Basil a bishop; see Funeral Orations, p. 154.) Gregory, his father’s auxiliary bishop, did not want to succeed his father. Because nothing…

Gregory refused to go to the appointed town in Basil’s jurisdiction, becoming, in his words, “a fugitive.” At first, Gregory’s father tried to persuade him to be an active bishop of Sasima, then, when the father’s health declined, the father, himself a bishop, asked Gregory to become his auxiliary (Concerning…

January 22 marks the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. Soon after it first appeared on the law library’s shelves, I read it and it was a big reason I decided to go to law school. Fifteen years later I became general counsel of the public…

The reason Gregory had left Basil after his visit to Basil’s monastery was related to Gregory’s family. Gregory’s father, now in his 80’s, had become ill and had asked his son to return home. During Christmastime, 362, Gregory was ordained a priest. Immediately Gregory thought he’d made a mistake and…

Basil either returned directly home from Athens and then toured the principal monasteries of the Eastern Roman Empire in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria or toured the monasteries before coming home (it’s unclear from my review of sources). At some point in these travels Basil’s older sister, St. Macrina, upbraided Basil…