We might want to discuss a shared discipline to take us from January 13th (for Catholics, that's the end of official Christmastide this year) through Ash Wednesday.
I fear we may lose focus on being an ecumenical group dedicated to praying for the salvation of our country if we don't have a shared discipline.
Many of you may have read this upsetting story. I think the personal self-debasement of Ms. Griffin is distressing.
The kind of contempt she shows for herself, Mr. Cooper, and the audience suggests to me that we might focus our attention on prayers concerning human dignity.
I'm open to suggestions.
  January 2, St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory Nazianzen
The Orthodox Church has placed Basil and Gregory with John Chrysostom in the first rank of ecumenical doctors. They are "the three Hierarchs." — Excerpted from Magnificat, PO Box 91, Spencerville, MD © 2001
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In celebrating the feasts of St. Basil of Caesarea and St. Gregory Nazianzen on the same day, the Church extols a virtue which she has always esteemed, friendship. The friendship between Basil and Gregory was admirable. Born in Cappadocia around 330, they studied together in Athens and then returned to their homeland where they led a monastic life for several years. Their temperaments were very different. While Basil had the qualities of a leader and a gift for organization that made him a legislator for monks in the East, Gregory was a contemplative and a poet.