St Gregory Nazianzen 2
I referred in the previous posting for today's feast that St. Gregory Nazianzen is an appropriate intercessor for those experiencing a vocational crisis because after his studies he was unsure if he should put them to good use as a lawyer or professor, or lay them aside altogether to seek God in silence and solitude. Later when appointed bishop, he fled several times because he did not have the natural inclination to rule and feared the responsibilities would prevent his mind from ascending to God.
However in the course of reading the Introduction to The Ladder of Monks by Guigo II, the translators quote a passage from Hugh of St Victor which says that those who take upon them the care of the Church out of obedience and emerge from the silence of inward peace to public life cannot be held accountable for not choosing the better part but those who do so out of ambition and desire for power or pleasure are blameworthy. Therefore if you are considering giving yourself to the contemplative, monastic or religious life, you should unless obedience or obligation requires you to remain in the world.
On another note, St Gregory's corpus of writings includes two orations on Easter which readers might like to read while Eastertide still prevails.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310201.htm
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310245.htm
Finally a quotation which relates both to Eastertide and the liturgy from letter CLXXXIV to Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium.
"Scarcely yet delivered from the pains of my illness, I hasten to you, the guardian of my cure. For the tongue of a priest meditating of the Lord raises the sick. Do then the greater thing in your priestly ministration, and loose the great mass of my sins when you lay hold of the Sacrifice of Resurrection ... cease not both to pray and to plead for me when you draw down the Word by your word, when with a bloodless cutting you sever the Body and Blood of the Lord, using your voice for the glaive (sword)."
However in the course of reading the Introduction to The Ladder of Monks by Guigo II, the translators quote a passage from Hugh of St Victor which says that those who take upon them the care of the Church out of obedience and emerge from the silence of inward peace to public life cannot be held accountable for not choosing the better part but those who do so out of ambition and desire for power or pleasure are blameworthy. Therefore if you are considering giving yourself to the contemplative, monastic or religious life, you should unless obedience or obligation requires you to remain in the world.
On another note, St Gregory's corpus of writings includes two orations on Easter which readers might like to read while Eastertide still prevails.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310201.htm
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310245.htm
Finally a quotation which relates both to Eastertide and the liturgy from letter CLXXXIV to Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium.
"Scarcely yet delivered from the pains of my illness, I hasten to you, the guardian of my cure. For the tongue of a priest meditating of the Lord raises the sick. Do then the greater thing in your priestly ministration, and loose the great mass of my sins when you lay hold of the Sacrifice of Resurrection ... cease not both to pray and to plead for me when you draw down the Word by your word, when with a bloodless cutting you sever the Body and Blood of the Lord, using your voice for the glaive (sword)."
posted by Lactantius at
9:52 am
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