Category: Patristics

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Deep-Dish Fun

I just got back from a trip with Junior to Chicago. Despite the wind chill, we had a delightful time. By chance (?), I managed to attend a Mass celebrated by my spiritual director from many years ago, Father Ed Maristany, author of Loving the Holy Mass and Call Him Father: How to Experience the Fatherhood of God. I hadn’t seen him in years. Junior and I stayed at the apartment of my friend Gary Bilinovich, who manages the sprawling campus of St. Mary of the Angels Parish, and we ate, drank, and were merry with my oft-quoted buddy Andy. We also made pilgrimage to meet Nancy Brown and her family. Nancy is the author of The Mystery of Harry Potter: A Catholic Family Guide and many excellent resources on G.K. Chesterton.

Too much fun. Now I have to catch up on posts for you, because the postal mail and email brought many great tidings of patristic joy.

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A Year in the Red

There have been many tributes to Houston’s patrologist-archbishop, Daniel DiNardo, on the first anniversary of his being named a Cardinal. Whispers in the Loggia brings them together rather admirably.

We’ll excuse his closing reference to His Eminence as “the Southern cardinal.”

Once a Pittsburgher, always a Pittsburgher.

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A Taste for Basil

Sister Macrina is trying to coax St. Basil out of the shadows: “Saint Basil has been badly served both in recent academic research on asceticism and also, particularly, in the recent upsurge in popular interest in monasticism.” She quotes from a recent book by Augustine Holmes: A Life Pleasing to God: The Spirituality of the Rules of St. Basil.

A plethora of books have been produced … to enable non-monastics to appropriate the spiritual riches of the rule of St Benedict … Parallel to this academic work there is no popular interest in ‘Basilian Spirituality’. This is both strange and regrettable as Basil’s teaching is scriptural, practical and avoids the ascetic extremism of the Egyptians and Syrians. It also has a strong social and community dimension which should appeal to modern concerns.

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Notes from Underground

Today’s Zaman reports on The Many Underground Cities of Cappadocia: “Cappadocia is the land of odd landscapes and ancient cities carved deep underground. Eruptions from Mt. Erciyes and Mt. Hasan covered the landscape with thick layers of volcanic ash, and this solidified to form the soft tufaceous rock.”

The region was, of course, the home of The Cappadocians, Saints Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus.

Thus:

When Christianity arrived in the region the remote and often harsh environment appealed to the anchorites who were looking for an ascetic lifestyle, with all the hardships they felt would draw them closer to God. Communities were formed following Saint Basil’s establishment of the rules of monastic life in the fourth century. When groups of raiding Arabs arrived on the scene in the seventh and eighth centuries, the monks and local Christian communities literally went underground to survive. After the establishment of the Ottoman Empire the threat of attack abated and the local inhabitants began to move out of the hidden cities and for many years the dwellings lay undisturbed, with only the topmost layers used by locals for storage and housing for animals.

In the Cappadocia region there are at least 40 of these underground settlements, but few are open to the public. Derinkuyu, with its eight descending levels, gives a good idea of what life down below must have been like. Kaymakli, located 10 kilometers north of Derinkuyu, is smaller in scale and has five levels open. These cities are definitely not for the claustrophobic, as the passageways are narrow and the ceilings tend to be low.

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Patristics for the Parish

Here’s just what the pastor ordered — or will order, I hope. It’s the Companion Guide to Pope Benedict’s ‘The Fathers’, penned by none other than Your Humble Servant.

I wrote it for group study of the Holy Father’s audience talks on the Church Fathers, which are handily collected by the same publisher in a book titled The Fathers. It’s designed to be a six-week study, but it’s easily expandable to twice that length, if a leader is so inclined. There’s enough material to acquaint a parish or neighborhood group with the early Fathers, from Clement of Rome to Augustine of Hippo. The Companion Guide groups the Fathers by historical period, gives cultural and personal background, synthesizes the material that Pope Benedict presented, and suggests questions for discussion. I’ve keyed the Guide to page numbers in The Fathers.

Ambitious groups can supplement these materials with The Fathers of the Church, Expanded Edition and The Mass of the Early Christians.

The new book weighs in at 96 pages — for only $8.95. Yes, I said $8.95! The novelist Kurt Vonnegut once recalled an ad he saw for a sale on straw hats: “For prices like this, you can run them through your horse and put them on your roses.”

I’d rather that you used these books for discussing the Fathers in friendly groups in your home or parish. But whatever works for the betterment of mankind.