Basil: why the wicked prosper

Tuesday, January 2, 2018
    Feast of Basil the Great & Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops, Teachers, 379 & 389
    Commemoration of Seraphim, Monk of Sarov, Mystic, Staretz, 1833
Meditation:
You are always righteous, O LORD,
    when I bring a case before you.
Yet I would speak with you about your justice:
    Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
    Why do all the faithless live at ease?
    —Jeremiah 12:1 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If you ask why the life of the wicked is prolonged and the days of the just shortened; why the wicked is prosperous and the just afflicted; why the child is cut off before its time; whence wars, shipwrecks, earthquakes, droughts, and floods; why those things have been created which are deadly to human life; why one is a slave and another free, one rich and another poor, and what requital is to be made by the Judge for all these,—when these things come into your thought, remember that the judgments of God are a great deep. But to him that believeth is the promise given by God, “I will give thee hidden treasures of secret places.”
    ... St. Basil the Great (330?-379), Homily on Ps. XXXII.5, quoted in Saint Basil the Great, Richard T. Smith, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1879, p. 111-112 (see the book)
    See also Jer. 12:1; Job 21:7; Ps. 37:1-2; 73:3; 92:6-7; Isa. 45:3; Mal. 3:15; Matt. 6:19-21
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, through Your faithfulness, we are rich indeed. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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