January 2

Basil the Great, Juanita Jackson Mitchell, and Willi Graf

Author

David Barnhart
January 02, 2026

Ice storm, 2005. Own photo.

Today is a feast day for Saint Basil the Great, one of the “Cappadoccian Fathers,” who died on January 1 or 2 in 379. He was influential in the development of ascetic monasticism and of Trinitarian theology. He was also a strong advocate for economic justice, excoriating the wealthy for their rejection of Christ’s compassion for the poor. 

Today is also the birthday, in 1913, of Juanita Jackson MItchell, civil rights activist, organizer, and lawyer—the first Black woman to be admitted to the Maryland bar. In college, she organized to desegregate the dormitories at the University of Pennsylvania. She went on to organize nationwide boycotts of businesses that served Black clients but would not hire them as employees. 

Today is the Birthday, in 1918, of Willi Graf, member of the White Rose resistance to the Nazis, who was an ally of Hans and Sophie Scholl, whose martyrdom we remembered on February 22. He was likewise executed by the Nazis on October 12, 1943. 

Reflection: 

Basil the Great wrote to the rich words that we need to hear today: 

“You begrudge your fellow human beings what you yourself enjoy; taking wicked counsel in your soul, you consider not how you might distribute to others according to their needs, but rather how, after having received so many good things, you might rob others.

…'But whom do I treat unjustly,' you say, 'by keeping what is my own?' Tell me, what is your own? What did you bring into this life? From where did you receive it? It is as if someone were to take the first seat in the theater, then bar everyone else from attending, so that one person alone enjoys what is offered for the benefit of all in common — this is what the rich do. They seize common goods before others have the opportunity, then claim them as their own by right of preemption. For if we all took only what was necessary to satisfy our own needs, giving the rest to those who lack, no one would be rich, no one would be poor, and no one would be in need.” 

Prayer: Jesus, you have told us that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. We see now that loyalty to capitalism is likewise the root of all kinds of evil. Help us to imagine and live into new ways of organizing human effort and labor, so that all creatures may enjoy the abundance of your creation. Amen.