There is a time to be born
From a homily on Ecclesiastes by Saint Gregory of Nyssa, bishop (c. 330-c. 395)
There is a time to be born and a time to die
There is a time to be born and a time to die. The fact that there is a natural link between birth and death is expressed very clearly in this text of Scripture. Death invariably follows birth and everyone who is born comes at last to the grave.
There is a time to be born and a time to die. God grant that mine may be a timely birth and a timely death! Of course no one imagines that the Speaker regards as acts of virtue our natural birth and death, in neither of which our own will plays any part. A woman does not give birth because she chooses to do so; neither does anyone die as a result of his own decision. Obviously, there is neither virtue nor vice in anything that lies beyond our control. So we must consider what is meant by a timely birth and a timely death.
It seems to me that the birth referred to here is our salvation, as is suggested by the prophet Isaiah. This reaches its full term and is not stillborn when, having been conceived by the fear of God, the soul’s own birth pangs bring it to the light of day. We are in a sense our own parents, and we give birth to ourselves by our own free choice of what is good. Such a choice becomes possible for us when we have received God into ourselves and have become children of God, children of the Most High. On the other hand, if what the Apostle calls the form of Christ has not been produced in us, we abort ourselves. The man of God must reach maturity.
Now if the meaning of a timely birth is clear, so also is the meaning of a timely death. For Saint Paul every moment was a time to die, as he proclaims in his letters: I swear by the pride I take in you that I face death every day. Elsewhere he says: For your sake we are put to death daily and we felt like men condemned to death. How Paul died daily is perfectly obvious. He never gave himself up to a sinful life but kept his body under constant control. He carried death with him, Christ’s death, wherever he went. He was always being crucified with Christ. It was not his own life he lived; it was Christ who lived in him. This surely was a timely death – a death whose end was true life.
I put to death and I shall give life, God says, teaching us that death to sin and life in the Spirit is his gift, and promising that whatever he puts to death he will restore to life again.
Source: The Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings
Saint Gregory of Nyssa, (c. 330-c. 395) the son of Saint Emmilia, was born at Caesarea, Capadocia, (Turkey) and raised by his brother Saint Basil and his sister Macrina. Well educated, he became a rhetorician and a professor of rhetoric. He then turned to the religious life under the guidance of St. Gregory Nazianzen. He was ordained a priest and lived in seclusion at Iris in Pontus. Later he was named bishop of Nyssa in lower Armenia, in 372 at the age of 42. With his see infested with the heresy of Arianism he was falsely accused of stealing Church property by the governor of Pontus, deposed and imprisoned. Having escaped, he remained in exile until 378, when Emperor Gratian restored him to his see.
In 379 he attended the Council of Antioch, which denounced the Meletian heresy and was sent by that council to Palestine and Arabia to combat heresy there. He was active in the General Council of Constantinople in 381 and eloquently attacked Arianism and reaffirmed the decrees of the Council of Nicaea. By this time he was widely venerated as the great pillar of orthodoxy and the great opponent of Arianism. Greatly influenced by the writings of Origen and Plato, he wrote numerous theological treatises which were considered the true exposition of the Catholic faith. Among them were his Catechetical Discourse, treatises against Eunomius and Appolinaris, a book on virginity, and commentaries on Scripture. The second General Council of Nicaea in 680-81, called him “Father of the Fathers.”
Narrated by Frank Dugan