The Herald

Sure of yourself, and at your best when there is something to do.

Confident
Restless mind

Picture: St Paul Preaching in Athens, Raphael, 1515

You are sure of yourself, and you are at your best with something to do. You like to be where things are happening.

What you bring

You step up when others hang back.
You are hard to rattle.
You get things done.

What it costs you

It can be hard for anyone to correct you.
Praise can steer you.
Rest can feel like losing.

Where the trap is set

Praise

Gregory says the tempter studies each person first, then sets the trap right next door. For the cheerful it’s pleasure. For the gloomy it’s a quarrel. For the careful it’s fear. For the proud, it’s praise.

“And because he beholds the proud elated with praises, he draws them on to whatever he pleases, by flattering applause.”
St Gregory the Great, Moralia on Job

So your temptation rarely looks like temptation. It looks like applause. Whoever praises you can steer you.

The gift in it

Your confidence is not a flaw to be crushed. Bowed before God, it becomes the courage to speak up for what is right.

“Some are lifted up by pride. But whilst they bow down the mind to the fear of God, they change this into the free tone of unrestrained authority in defence of justice.”
St Gregory the Great, Moralia on Job

A restless mind

Gregory says some minds are so restless that time off only makes their thoughts worse. They should work hard, and not force themselves into long stretches of stillness.

“there be some so restless, that if they have cessation from labour, they have only the worse labour”
St Gregory the Great, Moralia on Job

Who else was like this

Isaiah

When God asked, “Whom shall I send?”, he did not wait to be asked twice: “Here am I. Send me!”

Isaiah 6:8

St Peter

“Even if all fall away on account of You, I never will,” he said. That same night he denied Christ three times. Then he wept, came back, and led the Church.

Matthew 26:33, 75

St Basil the Great, as a young man

His brother says Basil came home from university proud of his speaking. He looked down on the leading men of his town, until his sister Macrina turned him round.

Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Macrina

Its opposite

The Still Water

Careful by nature, and at your best when life is quiet.

St Gregory the Theologian The Still Water
St Basil the Great The Herald

Gregory and Basil met as students in Athens. Gregory said they seemed to have “one soul, inhabiting two bodies”. Years later Basil, now an archbishop in a fight over churches, made Gregory bishop of a small town to hold the line. Basil pushed. Gregory held back. He wrote to Basil, “Give me before all things quiet.” Both are saints.

St Gregory the Theologian, Oration 43 and Letter 48