The Hanscom Family Weblog

1452 Pope Nicolaas I crowns Frederik III Roman Catholic-German emperor
1496 Jews are expelled from Carintha Austria
1497 Nicolaus Copernicus 1st recorded astronomical observation
1522 Marten Luther preaches his Invocavit
1562 Kissing in public banned in Naples (punishable by death)
1839 Birth of Phoebe Palmer Knapp, American Methodist hymnwriter. She published more than 500 hymn tunes during her lifetime; her most famous melody comprises the tune to Fanny Crosby’s hymn, “Blessed Assurance.”
1841 US Supreme Court rules Negroes are free (Amistad Incident)
1843 Scottish clergyman Robert Murray McCheyne wrote in a letter: ‘You will never find Jesus so precious as when the world is one vast howling wilderness. Then he is like a rose blooming in the midst of the desolation, a rock rising above the storm.’
1907 1st involuntary sterilization law enacted, Indiana
1918 Ukrainian mobs massacre Jews of Seredino Buda
1930 Pioneer linguist Frank Laubach wrote in a letter: ‘It seems to me…that the very Bible cannot be read as a substitute for meeting God soul to soul and face to face.’
1931 The World Radio Missionary Fellowship (WRMF) was incorporated in Lima, Ohio, by co_founders Clarence W. Jones and Reuben Larson. Today, this interdenominational mission agency broadcasts the Gospel in 15 languages to South America and throughout Europe.
1943 Greek Jews of Salonika are transported to Nazi extermination camps
1956 Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus arrested & exiled to Seychelles
1965 Three white Unitarian ministers, including the Rev. James J. Reeb, were attacked with clubs on the streets of Selma, Alabama, while participating in a civil rights demonstration. Reeb later died in a Birmingham, Alabama hospital.
1977 Hanafi Moslems invade 3 buildings in Washington DC, siege ended March 11th

March 9

On this day in 1995, the Committee for a New Dialogue on Sexuality met at General Seminary in New York City.

Feast Day:

St. Pacian, Bishop of Barcelona, 4th century.
St. Gregory, of Nyssa, bishop, 400.
St. Frances, widow, of Rome, foundress of the Collatines, 1440.
St. Catherine, of Bologna, virgin, 1463.

March 9

Botulph [PCP (Paris)]
Catherine (of Bologna), abbess [BLS]
Cyril and Methodius, bishops, confessors [GTZ: Prague, Gnesen]
Forty Martyrs [common; 6082, in red]
Frances (of Rome), widow [common]
Gregory (of Nyssa) [BLS]
Pacian, bishop (of Barcelona) [BLS]
Poncius, martyr [WTS (Bruges)]

On This Day

Dominic Savio,
Forty Martyrs of Sebaste,
Frances of Rome,
Gregory of Nyssa,
Pacian

In History

1841 -US Supreme Court frees slaves who seized slave ship Amisted
1945 - “Foodless Lunch” to publicize plight of hungry people of Europe held at Waldorf hotel in London

GREGORY OF NYSSA
(9 MAR 395)

Gregory of Nyssa, his brother Basil the Great (14 June), and Basil’s best friend Gregory of Nazianzus (9 May), are known collectively as the Cappadocian Fathers. They were a major force in the triumph of the Athanasian position at the Council of Constantinople in 381. Gregory of Nyssa tends to be overshadowed by the other two.

Gregory of Nyssa was born in Caesarea, the capital of Cappadocia (central Turkey) in about 334, the younger brother of Basil the Great and of Macrina (19 July), and of several other distinguished persons. As a youth, he was at best a lukewarm Christian. However, when he was twenty, some of the relics of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (10 March) were transferred to a chapel near his home, and their presence made a deep impression on him, confronting him with the fact that to acknowledge God at all is to acknowledge His right to demand a total commitment. Gregory became an active and fervent Christian. He considered the priesthood, decided it was not for him, became a professional orator like his father, married, and settled down to the life of a Christian layman. However, his brother Basil and his friend Gregory of Nazianzus persuaded him to reconsider, and he became a priest in about 362. (This did not affect his marriage.)

His brother Basil, who had become archbishop of Caesarea in 370, was engaged in a struggle with the Arian Emperor Valens, who was trying to stamp out belief in the deity of Christ. Basil desperately needed the votes and support of Athanasian bishops, and he maneuvered his friend Gregory into the bishopric of Sasima, and (in about 371) his brother Gregory into the bishopric of Nyssa, a small town about ten miles from Caesarea. Neither one wanted to be a bishop, neither was suited to be a bishop, and both were furious with Basil.) Gregory did not get along well with his flock, was falsely accused of embezzling church funds, fled the scene in about 376, and did not return until after the death of Valens about two years later.

In 379, Basil died, having lived to see the death of Valens and the end of the persecution. Shortly thereafter, Macrina died. Gregory was with her in the last few days of her life. Afterwards, he took to writing sermons and treatises on theology and philosophy. His philosophy was a form of Christian Platonism. In his approach to the Scriptures, he was heavily influenced by Origen, and his writings on the Trinity and the Incarnation build on and develop insights found in germ in the writings of his brother Basil. But he is chiefly remembered as a writer on the spiritual life, on the contemplation of God, not only in private prayer and meditation, but in corporate worship and in the sacramental life of the Church.

His treatise On the Making of Man deals with God as Creator, and with the world as a good thing, as something that God takes delight in, and that ought to delight us. His Great Catechism is esteemed as a work of systematic theology. His Commentary on the Song of Songs is a work of contemplative, devotional, mystical theology.

His book The Life of Moses is available from the Paulist Press in the series The Classics of Western Spirituality. The reader who is expecting a straightforward biography will be startled — not necessarily disappointed. An example of his treatment is the following:

In Numbers 13 and 14 we read that when Moses had led the Israelites out of Egypt and to the borders of Canaan, he sent twelve spies into the land to look it over. They returned to report two things: (1) The inhabitants of the land were fierce warriors and would prove a formidable enemy. (2) The land was a good land, with fertile soil and an abundance of natural resources. As proof, they brought back a cluster of grapes so large that they hung it from a wooden pole that two men carried horizontally between them. Ten of the spies said that the enemy was too strong to be defeated, and that the Israelites ought to turn back, but the remaining two, Joshua and Caleb, urged the people to remember that the LORD was with them, and had shown Himself mighty to save. The people listened to the ten and prepared to turn back. At this the LORD was angry and said, “Very well, you shall wander in the wilderness for forty years, until all the men of this generation have died, except for Joshua and Caleb. Only then shall the next generation go in to possess the homeland that I promised to Abraham for his descendants.” Hence the well-known child’s nursery rhyme that goes in part:

Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh
Were the only two who ever got thru to the land of milk and honey.

Gregory (following the example of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 10) treats the Exodus as a type of our deliverance from the bondage of sin, and the Promised Land as a type of Heaven. He comments that the Israelites had been guilty of idolatry, of fornication, of repeated rebellions against Moses, of various disobediences to the commands of God, but that none of these moved God to deny them entrance into the Promised Land. It was only when they came to the Land, and God showed them what a good land He had prepared for them, and gave them a token of that goodness in the form of the cluster of grapes, hanging from a wooden pole between two spies, and they refused to trust in the promise of God to save them from their enemies, that they were turned back (indeed, that they turned themselves back). So, it is not failure to live virtuous lives that can keep us out of Heaven, but a refusal to believe in the mercy of God, and to trust His gracious declarations of His good will toward us, concretely expressed in the saving blood of Christ, Who is the True Vine, and Who for our sakes hung on the wood of the cross between two thieves, as the grape cluster hung on the wood of the pole between two spies, showing forth in His own Person the sign of God’s good will to us and His assurance that He is ready to overcome all our enemies.

As you see, it is not really a biography of Moses, and it will not be to everyone’s taste, not even to every Christian’s taste. And even Christians who find this approach helpful will grant that it has its pitfalls. Clearly anyone who follows Gregory’s example runs the risk of being led on a random walk by the will-o-the-wisp of his own imagination. But many Christians have received spiritual nourishment from this way of reading the Scriptures, and the example of St. Paul, as aforesaid, favors the view that this approach is at least sometimes of legitimate value.

Readings:

Psalm 19:7-11(12-14)
Wisdom 7:24-28
Ephesians 2:17-22
John 14:23-26

Preface of the Trinity

PRAYER (traditional language)

Almighty God, who hast revealed to thy Church thine eternal Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in Trinity of Persons: Give us grace that, like thy bishop Gregory of Nyssa, we may continue steadfast in the confession of this faith, and constant in our worship of thee, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who livest and reignest now and for ever.

PRAYER (contemporary language)

Almighty God, who have revealed to your Church your eternal Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in Trinity of Persons: Give us grace that, like your bishop Gregory of Nyssa, we may continue steadfast in the confession of this faith, and constant in our worship of you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who live and reign for ever and ever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_of_Nyssa

ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA
TUESDAY, MARCH 09, 2010

The son of two saints, Basil and Emmilia, young Gregory was raised by his older brother, St. Basil the Great, and his sister, Macrina, in modern-day Turkey. Gregory’s success in his studies suggested great things were ahead for him. After becoming a professor of rhetoric, he was persuaded to devote his learning and efforts to the Church. By then married, Gregory went on to study for the priesthood and become ordained (this at a time when celibacy was not a matter of law for priests).

He was elected Bishop of Nyssa (in Lower Armenia) in 372, a period of great tension over the Arian heresy, which denied the divinity of Christ. He was briefly arrested after being falsely accused of embezzling Church funds, Gregory was restored to his see in 378, an act met with great joy by his people.

It was after the death of his beloved brother, Basil, that Gregory really came into his own. He wrote with great effectiveness against Arianism and other questionable doctrines, gaining a reputation as a defender of orthodoxy. He was sent on missions to counter other heresies and held a position of prominence at the Council of Constantinople. His fine reputation stayed with him for the remainder of his life, but over the centuries it gradually declined as the authorship of his writings became less and less certain. But, thanks to the work of scholars in the 20th century, his stature is once again appreciated. Indeed, St. Gregory of Nyssa is seen not simply as a pillar of orthodoxy but as one of the great contributors to the mystical tradition in Christian spirituality and to monasticism itself.

http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/saintoftheday/mar_09_-_st._caesarius#6943

St. Frances of Rome
(1384-1440)

Frances’s life combines aspects of secular and religious life. A devoted and loving wife, she longed for a lifestyle of prayer and service, so she organized a group of women to minister to the needs of Rome’s poor.

Born of wealthy parents, Frances found herself attracted to the religious life during her youth. But her parents objected and a young nobleman was selected to be her husband.

As she became acquainted with her new relatives, Frances soon discovered that the wife of her husband’s brother also wished to live a life of service and prayer. So the two, Frances and Vannozza, set out together—with their husbands’ blessings—to help the poor.

Frances fell ill for a time, but this apparently only deepened her commitment to the suffering people she met. The years passed, and Frances gave birth to two sons and a daughter. With the new responsibilities of family life, the young mother turned her attention more to the needs of her own household. The family flourished under Frances’s care, but within a few years a great plague began to sweep across Italy. It struck Rome with devastating cruelty and left Frances’s second son dead. In an effort to help alleviate some of the suffering, Frances used all her money and sold her possessions to buy whatever the sick might possibly need. When all the resources had been exhausted, Frances and Vannozza went door to door begging. Later, Frances’s daughter died, and the saint opened a section of her house as a hospital.

Frances became more and more convinced that this way of life was so necessary for the world, and it was not long before she requested and was given permission to found a society of women bound by no vows. They simply offered themselves to God and to the service of the poor. Once the society was established, Frances chose not to live at the community residence, but rather at home with her husband. She did this for seven years, until her husband passed away, and then came to live the remainder of her life with the society—serving the poorest of the poor.

DEATH OF CARDINAL MAZARIN

Mazarin, an Italian by birth, and a pupil of Richelieu, but inferior to his master, was the minister of the Regency during the minority of Louis XIV. He was more successful at the close of his career in his treaties of peace than he had been in his wars and former negotiations. In February 1661, he had concluded at Vincennes a third and last treaty with Charles, duke of Lorraine, by which Strasburg, Phalsburg, Stenai, and other places were given up to France.

A fatal malady had seized on the Cardinal whilst engaged in the conferences of the treaty, and, worn by mental agony, he brought it home with him to the Louvre. He consulted Grenaud, the great physician, who told him that he had two months to live. This sad assurance troubled the Cardinal greatly; his pecuniary wealth, his valuables and pictures, were immense. He was fond of hoarding, and his love of pictures was as strong as his love of power—perhaps even stronger. Soon after his physician had told him how short a time he had to live, Brienne perceived the Cardinal in night-cap and dressing-gown tottering along his gallery, pointing to his pictures, and exclaiming, ‘Must I quit all these?’ He saw Brienne, and seized him: ‘Look!’ he exclaimed, ‘look at that Correggio! this Venus of Titian! that incomparable Deluge of Caracci! Ah! my friend, I must quit all these! Farewell, clear pictures, that I loved so dearly, and that cost me so much!’