Year after year, these Paschal, joyful, and blessed days are adorned by the sacred commemoration of Saint Basil the Wonderworker of Ostrog, the most radiant witness of Christ’s Resurrection and our most beloved saint. Each of us harbours a deep love for the Ostrog miracle-worker; we never mention his name without rising and pronouncing the words, “Glory and mercy be upon him.” Our relationship with the saint is a living one—he is the voice that awakens our sleeping conscience, the teacher who proclaims to us the Lord’s teaching, our spiritual father and most wondrous guide who leads us into the joy of communion with the Lord.
“For Thou art holy, O our God, who dwellest among the saints,” is the truth proclaimed to us by the sacred liturgy—for God is truly wondrous in His saints, and most wondrous in our Saint Basil of Ostrog. The Apostle Paul refers to all Christians as saints, provided they are mindful that Christ has dwelled within them since their baptism. Saint Basil of Ostrog bears witness to the fact that, through the saints on earth, we may come to know the eternal life of the age to come—life that, through them, is most perfectly reflected from God.
What else does Saint Basil of Ostrog teach us? Our beloved saint teaches us that the saints possess the virtue above all virtues—love. The virtue of love encompasses the greatest kindness, transparency, and closeness to all. It contains all other virtues within itself. Saint Cyril of Alexandria closely associated holiness with sacrifice. Sacrifice is the cross and sacrifice is suffering, and Saint Basil of Ostrog bears witness that only the one willing to sacrifice becomes capable of truly entering into the state of holiness and becoming akin to it. Our Ostrog saint has triumphed over time; with the love of God, he has conquered transience and thus attained the highest likeness to Christ—who is, simultaneously, in heaven and with us on earth until the end of time.
Our beloved saint already bears the radiance of the eternal and perfected human being. All saints contain within themselves the transparent and visible culmination of Christ’s humanity, which finds its supreme expression in them. At the beginning of this reflection, we stated that Saint Basil of Ostrog is the most wondrous witness of Christ’s Resurrection. The saint bears witness that the Resurrection of Christ is neither a myth nor a legend, nor a charming tale from the past with a moral conclusion. The event of the Resurrection is a historical fact—just as Christ, although the God-man, was a historical Person. The Resurrection is the Truth that for two millennia we live, proclaim, and preach in the Church and the Liturgy. It is the Truth of the world’s salvation in the Holy Spirit.
Before the Reliquary of the Mother of Saint Basil of Ostrog
From year to year, we celebrate the sacred memory of Saint Basil of Ostrog; year after year, we experience that day as a new joy, we partake of the saint’s love and his prayerful protection and intercession. It has been 354 years since the repose of Saint Basil, and from then until today, he has ceaselessly tended and healed our spiritual and bodily wounds, transforming the Ostrog sanctuary into a new Bethesda, a new mountain of our spiritual transfiguration and renewal.
Standing before the Lord and His beloved servant, let us lower our minds into our hearts and into the deepest depths of our being, and attempt to answer the question: Do we walk steadfastly along the path of Saint Basil of Ostrog? It is impossible to answer this question without tears before our saint, for by human weakness we (far too) often stray from the path of Christ along which Saint Basil leads us. This question shakes our very core, for we frequently forget the teaching of love imparted by Saint Basil, replacing sacrifice and ascetic struggle with worldly pleasures and fleeting delights. As our teacher, Saint Basil calls us to conduct a spiritual reckoning, to correct all sinful deviations and to make the love of Christ—the love in which the mystery of our salvation is hidden—the purpose of our lives.
Holy Father Basil, our intercessor and protector, teach us to live by the commandments of the Lord and to fulfill His will; soften our hardened hearts and teach us to see in the face of every person the image of God. O seer of Ostrog, open our spiritual eyes that we may recognize, through spiritual contemplation, that our only true homeland is the Kingdom of Heaven—the joy of which you partake and proclaim to us. Glory and mercy be upon you, most wondrous witness of Christ’s Resurrection!
Written by: Catechist Branislav Ilić, Editor of the “Kinonia” Portal
