St. Basil the Great's Letter to Gregory
St. Basil the Great was a very holy man. As our reading puts it, "He had significant intellectual gifts; yet he showed, beyond intelligence, a wisdom to search out the deep secrets of the mysteries of God." It was no surprise that Basil grew up to be an excellent ambassador for Catholicism. His family was packed full of great Catholics. His grandfather was a martyr, and his parents, grandmother and three siblings are also saints. Like many great holy men, Basil was not always very religious. He went through his conversion while teaching rhetoric in his hometown. After visitng several monasteries, he eventually founded his own in modern-day Turkey. He fought the Arian heresy for years and his teachings lead to anti-Arian decisions at the Council of Constantinople. Basil was named one of the "Great Fathers" of the Church. St. Basil the Great was one of the most impressive Catholic thinkers throughout all of history. The main idea of Basil's letter that we read was that all human beings have the potential for holiness if we let God into our minds and hearts. To me, this letter was very clearly St Basil's general guide to holiness. In the opening paragraph, Basil writes that he understand and knows that holiness is not easy to achie
ve. He says that he has been exiled from society because of what he is fighting for, but it is worth it because Jesus taught that holiness is the way to salvation. He suggests that people should follow him. I found everything Basil wrote to be very clear and easy to read. Most importantly, however, the reading really made sense to me. At first, it seemed like Basil's intended audience was about five years old. I say that because it all seemed very elementary. We all know that some ways to get to God is to let Him talk to us, to read Scriptures, to pray, to have good communication with others, and to have good morals. Then on the other hand, do we all follow those commonly known good ideas? I think it is a good letter for everyone to read because Basil does a good job of explaining why all of those things apply to us and how they will help us. He does more than just writing, "Pray because it is good." His description of how solitude is an excellent tool to help us attain holiness was amazing. On top of being fascinating, I found it interesting that he would list it ahead of the other ideas. My guess is that he did that because most people were already familiar with reading Scriptures, praying, and having morals. Often times, just sitting and concentrating on listening to God is overlooked. I know this from my experiences. When I think about it, it seems that the only time I do so is when a religion teacher has the class do it. I pray and try to be good, but I know that I should try
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Approximate Word count = 1007
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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