QUOTATION: The More Things Change...

The dogmas of the fathers are despised; apostolical traditions are set at nought; the discoveries of innovators hold sway in the Churches. Men have learned to be speculatists instead of theologians. The wisdom of the world has the place of honour, having dispossed the glorying in the Cross. The pastors are driven away, grievous wolves are brought in instead, and plunder the flock of Christ. Houses of prayer are destitute of preachers; the deserts are full of mourners: the aged sorrow, comparing what is with what was; more pitiable the young, as not knowing what they are deprived of.

--St. Basil the Great

QUOTATION: The Love of God

The love of God is not taught. No one has taught us to enjoy the light or to be attached to life more than anything else. And no one has taught us to love the two people who brought us into the world and educated us. Which is all the more reason to believe that we did not learn to love God as a result of outside instruction. In the very nature of every human being has been sown the seed of the ability to love. You and I ought to welcome this seed, cultivate it carefully, nourish it attentively and foster its growth by going to the school of God’s commandments with the help of His grace.

--St Basil the Great

QUOTATION: Meekness

Meekness, the greatest of virtues, is reckoned among the beatitudes. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land.” For that blessed land, the heavenly Jerusalem, is not the spoil of warriors who have conquered, but the hoped-for inheritance of the meek, who patiently endure the evils of this life.

--St. Basil the Great

QUOTATION: Intimacy with the Lord

Intimacy with the Lord is not a matter of physical kinship; rather it is achieved by cheerful readiness to do the will of God.

--St. Basil the Great

QUOTATION: Empathy

Whoever sheds a fervent tear for the hardships of his fellow man, heals his own wounds.

--St. Basil the Great

QUOTATION: Sacred Tradition Equal to Scripture

Of the dogmas and proclamations preserved in the Church, some we possess from written teaching, while others we have received in secret from the Tradition of the Apostles; these both have the same validity for true religion. And no one will gainsay these points, at least if he is even moderately versed in ecclesiastical institutions.

--St. Basil the Great

QUOTATION: Temptation

As the pilot of a vessel is tried in the storm; as the wrestler is tried in the ring; the soldier in the battle, and the hero in adversity; so is the Christian tried in temptation.

--St. Basil the Great

QUOTATION: Correction

Reprimand and rebuke should be accepted as healing remedies for vice and as conducive to good health. From this it is clear that those who pretend to be tolerant because they wish to flatter——-those who thus fail to correct sinners——-actually cause them to suffer supreme loss and plot the destruction of that life which is their true life.

--St. Basil the Great

QUOTATION: Guardian Angels

Beside each believer stands an Angel as protector and shepherd, leading him to life.

--St. Basil the Great

QUOTATION: The Presence of God

If you wish for a method brief and compendious, one which contains in itself all other methods and is most efficacious in conquering all temptations and difficulties, and acquiring perfection, this is the exercise of the presence of God.

--St. Basil the Great

QUOTATION: Abortion

A woman who intentionally destroys a fetus is guilty of murder. And we do not even talk about the fine distinction as to its being completely formed or unformed.

--Saint Basil the Great

QUOTATION: Mortal Sin

Committing sin estranges us from the Lord and leagues us with the devil.

--St. Basil, The Morals, 22