Today September 13

Today is the (new) feast day of St. John Chrysostom (347 - 407 AD). His mother, Anthusa, was a very strong and able Christian woman, but she, wisely, didn't homeschool John -- she got the best teachers, though they may have been pagan. One of his teachers, Libanus, when asked who his successor should be, exclaimed: "John would have been my choice, had not the Christians stolen him from us!"

He went on a spiritual quest in the mountains just south of his native Antioch, four years under a spiritual director and two as a solitary. He ruined his (pulmonary) health and returned to the city -- for, lucky for us, he became first a deacon, then a priest and finally a bishop's deputy. He was always concerned -- in a hands-on, grassroots way -- with the care of the poor and I think it is notable that this priest never took a "priest's day off" but preached and said Mass every day, sometimes several times a day. Interesting. And he was not in great health either. You could dismiss him by saying, "Well, yeah, but he was a great saint and to expect our priests today to do the same is ridiculous." Yes, but at the time he was just an ordinary priest and what he did was not extraordinary. His enthusiasm and dedication to the job is not what brought tremendous attention (both negative and positive) upon him. He made powerful enemies, did John Chrysostom.

He had two strikes against him already when he was made bishop of Constantinople: Theophilus of Alexandria was disposed to dislike him from the start, since his own handpicked candidate for the job was rejected, and Empress Eudoxia found him to be entirely too rigid and righteous for her (decadent and self-indulgent) taste. So, even though he was fighting a losing battle, John bravely ruled his wide and important see -- preaching tirelessly once again, and fearlessly attacking immodesty in dress, attendance of the violent games and races (especially on high holy days, such as Good Friday and Holy Saturday), infrequent Communion, lax clerics (whom he disciplined and, when necessary, deposed and replaced), and, most politically incorrect of all, the vanity of the imperial court, of the Empress most of all. John was deposed at the (wholly illegal) "Synod of the Oak," and exiled, to the delight of the Empress, for the first time. But an earthquake occurred in Constantinople and the superstitious Eudoxia had him reinstated, thinking she had perhaps angered God. But the situation was not to last: he was banished again, after "with his usual freedom and courage spoke out loudly against" the silver statue of the Empress erected right in the square outside Santa Sophia (the cathedral church) and the accompanying festival games. He appealed to the Pope (St. Innocent I), who suggested a new council to fully instate and exonerate John, but Emperor Arcadius and his wife Eudoxia prevented any such assembly. He was exiled to Armenia, having suffered the long, humiliating and hot journey through Turkey, but was received with every kindness by the faithful people there. But the emperor (and the party of renegade bishop Theophilus, who jailed the pope's emissaries who came to the imperial city to further demand a council) resolved poor John should be exiled even farther -- to the nether side of the Black Sea. And so this old bishop was forced in the rain and in the heat to travel farther (one guard was decent to him, relatively speaking, and one was cruel). But when he got to Cappadocia, he had a vision of the martyr St. Basiliscus, who said to him, "Courage, brother! Tomorrow we shall be together." And so it was. The guards saw on the trail that he was dying, so they took him back to the chapel of St. Basiliscus, where he was clothed in the white garment, mercifully given the Last Rites, and died, saying, "Glory be to God for all things." Good St. John, pray for us.