⛪ Saint Gregorian Nazianen - The Theologian

⛪ Saint of the Day: January 2

⛪Other Names: Gregory of Nazianzus • Grégoire de Nazianze • The Christian Demosthenes • The Theologian

⛪ Memorial:
• 2 January  • 3 January (Granada, Zaragoza and Jaca, Spain) • 11 June (translation of relics to Rome, Italy) • 30 January (translation of relics)

⛪ Born: 330 at Arianzus, Cappadocia, Asia Minor

⛪ Died: 25 January 390 of natural causes

⛪ Patronage: For harvests •  Poets

Saint Basil the Great & Saint Gregorian Nazianen

Gregory was born of saintly parents and was the chosen friend of Saint Basil. They studied together at Athens, turned at the same time from the fairest worldly prospects, and for some years lived together in seclusion, self-discipline, and toil. Gregory was raised, almost by force, to the priesthood; and was in time made Bishop of Nazianzum by Saint Basil, who had become Archbishop of Caesarea. When he was fifty years old, he was chosen, for his rare gifts and his conciliatory disposition, to be Patriarch of Constantinople, then distracted and laid waste by Arian and other heretics. In that city, he laboured with wonderful success. The Arians were so irritated at the decay of their heresy that they pursued the Saint with outrage, calumny, and violence, and at length resolved to take away his life. For this purpose, they chose a resolute young man, who readily undertook the sacrilegious commission. But God did not allow him to carry it out. He was touched with remorse, and cast himself at the Saint’s feet, avowing his sinful intent. Saint Gregory at once forgave him, treated him with all kindness, and received him amongst his friends, to the wonder and edification of the whole city, and to the confusion of the heretics, whose crime had served only as a foil to the virtue of the Saint. Saint Jerome boasts that he had sat at his feet, and calls him his master and his catechist in Holy Scripture. But his lowliness, his austerities, the insignificance of his person, and above all his very success, drew down on him the hatred of the enemies of the Faith. . He was persecuted by the magistrates, stoned by the rabble, and thwarted and deserted even by his brother bishops. During the second General Council, he resigned his see, hoping thus to restore peace to the tormented city, and retired to his native town, where he died A.D. 390. He was a graceful poet, a preacher at once eloquent and solid; and as a champion of the Faith so well equipped, so strenuous, and so exact, that he is called Saint Gregory the Theologian.

⛪ Reflection – “We must overcome our enemies,” said Saint Gregory, “by gentleness; win them over by forbearance. Let them be punished by their own conscience, not by our wrath. Let us not at once wither the fig-tree, from which a more skilful gardener may yet entice fruit.”

Source : Pictorial Lives of the Saints, 1889.