Grégoire de Nysse
v. 335-v. 394 4th century Feast day: March 9
The desire for God that is never satisfied: to move endlessly, from beginning to beginning, toward the One we never finish finding.
Who was Grégoire de Nysse?
Brother of Basil of Caesarea and of Macrina, he was born in Cappadocia and taught rhetoric before Basil made him bishop of Nyssa, a small town in Asia Minor. Drawn against his will into the doctrinal disputes of his age, he defended the faith of Nicaea and unfolded, in his treatises and homilies, a theology of the soul's endless ascent toward a God who is always greater. When Basil and Macrina died, it was he who gathered and carried on their spiritual legacy.
In their own words
This is truly the vision of God: never to be satisfied in the desire to see him.
The perfection of human nature consists perhaps in this very thing: to grow constantly in the good.
The soul that rises toward God never ceases to go from beginning to beginning, through beginnings that have no end.