St. Gregory of Nyssa tried something foolish on behalf of his brother Basil. In the heat of fighting Arianism, his uncle unfortunately was one of the opponents of Basil in the city, which caused a fraction in the family. Gregory forged a letter purporting to come from his uncle to Basil extending the olive branch. The fraud was discovered, and prompted Basil to rebuke his brother, Gregory. The question was asked: “ Can a person do a stupid thing like this, and still become a saint?” Absolutely!

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"I have heard Holy Scripture somewhere condemn those who are guilty of blaspheming God. `Woe to those,' it says, `through whom my Name is blasphemed among the Gentiles.' Now the meaning g of these words is something like this: Those who have not yet believed the word of truth closely examine the lives of those who have received the mystery of the faith. If, therefore, people are `faithful' only in name, but contradict this name by their life, whether by committing idolatry for the sake of gain or by disgracing themselves by drunkenness and revelry, being immersed in profligacy like swine in the mud - then the pagans immediately attribute this not the free choice of these evil-living men, but to the mystery which is supposed to teach these things. For, they say, such and such a man who has been initiated into the Divine mysteries would not be such a slanderer, or so avaricious and grasping, or anything equally evil, unless sinning was lawful for them. `Woe to those through whom my Name is blasphemed among the Gentiles."    St. Gregory of Nyssa

"Wisdom holds to the mean between shrewdness and simplicity. Neither the wisdom of the serpent nor the simplicity of the dove is to be praised, if one should choose either of these with respect to itself alone. Rather it is the disposition which closely unites these two by the mean that is virtue. The person who lacks moderation is a libertine, and he who goes beyond moderation has his conscience branded, and the Apostle says. For the one has given himself up without restrain to pleasures, and the other defiles marriage as if it were adultery. The disposition observed in the mean between these two is moderation."  St. Gregory of Nyssa

"But let no one imagine that humility can be achieved easily and without labor. On the contrary, it needs more effort than the practice of any other virtue. Why? Though man had received good seeds, the chief of the opposite seeds - the tares of pride - sown by the enemy of our life, took root while he was asleep. For the same thing by which the devil had caused his own downfall to earth, caused the miserable human race to fling itself down with him into the common ruin; and there is no other evil so harmful to our nature as that which is caused by pride."
St. Gregory of Nyssa.

Our greatest protection is self-knowledge, and to avoid the delusion that we are seeing ourselves when we are in reality looking at something else. This is what happens to those who do not scrutinize themselves. What they see is strength, beauty, reputation, political power, abundant wealth, pomp, self-importance, bodily stature, a certain grace of form or the life, and they think that this is what they are. Such persons make very poor guardians of themselves: because of their absorption in something else, they overlook what is their own and leave it unguarded. How can a person protect what he does not know? The most secure protection for our treasure is to know ourselves: each one must know himself as he is, and distinguish himself from all that is not he, that he may not unconsciously be protecting something else instead of himself."       St. Gregory of Nyssa.

Love, therefore, is the foremost of all excellent achievements and the first of the commandments of the law. If ever, then, the soul reach this goal, it will be in no need of anything else; it will embrace that plenitude of things which are, whereby alone it seems in any way to preserve within itself the stamp of God's actual blessedness. For the life of the Supreme Being is love, seeing that the Beautiful is necessarily lovable to those who recognize it, and the Deity does recognize it, and so this recognition becomes love, that which He recognizes being essentially beautiful. This True Beauty the insolence of satiety cannot touch; and no satiety interrupting this continuous capacity to love the Beautiful, God's life will have its activity in life; which life is thus in itself beautiful, and is essentially of a loving disposition towards the Beautiful."
St. Gregory of Nyssa.

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"Now the health of the soul is the accomplishment of the Divine Will, just as, on the other hand, the disease of the soul that ends in death is the falling away from this good Will. We fell ill when we forsook the wholesome way of life in Paradise and filled ourselves with the poison of disobedience, through which our nature was conquered by this evil and deadly disease. Then there came the true Physician who cured the evil perfectly by its opposite, as is the law of medicine. For those who had succumbed to the disease because they had separated themselves from the Divine Will, He frees once more from their sickness by uniting them to the Will of God. For the words of the prayer bring the cure of the disease which is in the soul. For He prays as if His soul was immersed in pain, saying, `Thy Will be done.' Now the Will of God is the salvation of men."
St. Gregory of Nyssa

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"Moses sought to see God, and this is the instruction he receives on how he is to see Him: seeing God means following Him wherever He might lead. Anyone who does not know the way cannot travel safely without following a guide. The guide shows him the way by walking ahead of him, and the one following will not get off the right path if he keeps constantly watching the back of the guide. On the other hand, if he moves off to one side, or tries to bring himself face to face with his guide, he will be setting out on a different path from the one which his guide is showing him. Thus the Lord says to those who are being guided: You shall not see My face, or, in other words: Do not face your guide. For then you will be going in a completely opposite direction."       St. Gregory of Nyssa

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"Once again Psalm Eighty-Nine describes the impermanence of our human nature in order to win over God's mercy. It clearly teaches us by examples to be mindful of the afflictions of our nature both in the morning and evening, that is to say, in our youth and old age. Grass and flowers which are alive in the morning have passed away [by evening]. Next, the plant's moisture which exists at the prime of life dries up and looses its blossom once its innate beauty has evaporated while the rest of the plant dries up and withers away. The psalm thus describes our human nature by saying, 'In the morning let is flower and pass away; in the evening let it droop; let it be withered and dried up.' Such is our human nature." St. Gregory of Nyssa.

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The Eucharist - The Holy Communion:  

Coming soon.