Most human beings are endowed with average gifts. Once in a while we encounter a man or woman clearly outstanding. Pope St. Gregory I, for instance, was one of these first-class personalities. Gregory was born around 540 into a patrician Roman family that had already given two popes to the Church. His family trained him for civil service. Roman civil service had always been a distinguished career. Able civil servants were all the more necessary in the sixth century when Italy was being overrun by barbarian invaders. Around 570, when aged thirty, he was named prefect (governor) of Rome, with the duty of defending, financing, provisioning and policing the Eternal City. He proved more than equal to the task.
After his father’s death in 575, however, as the result of a religious “conversion,” Gregory decided to become a monk. For himself and a group of like-minded men, he turned his family home into a monastery, and set out on a program of prayer and study. But he was too able a man for the popes to leave in the cloister. Four years later he was put in charge of one of Rome’s regional deaconries, and ordained a deacon. Before long he was sent on a mission to the Roman Emperor in Constantinople as an aposcrisiarius (papal ambassador). If he had to leave the monastery, he at least took along the monastic life. A number of his monks went with him, and they set up a temporary monastic house in Constantinople. During the mission he pleaded with the Emperor to send troops to protect Italy from invaders, but the short-sighted emperor was not persuaded. Returning to Rome in 586, Deacon Gregory became an advisor to Pope Pelagius II. In 589 Rome was stricken by a terrible epidemic, of which the Pope himself was one of the victims. Gregory was chosen by acclamation to succeed him as bishop of Rome. While waiting patiently for the Emperor’s permission for his consecration, the pope-elect organized a massive penitential procession in Rome to beg divine intervention. Tradition says that when St. Michael the Archangel appeared, sheathing his sword, on the top of the Mausoleum of Hadrian, the plague ceased. The new pope truly regretted being permanently called out of the cloister, but he accepted the call as a divine assignment and began his energetic rule.
First, he gradually became the real ruler of most of Italy. When Emperor Maurice refused to send protective troops, Italy turned more and more to the popes for leadership. Gregory prevented the Lombards from invading Rome, not by arms but by paying them a large sum and promising them an annual tribute thereafter. Not the noblest method perhaps, but one that prevented further war. Popes after him eventually became rulers of the “Papal States.” Second, he acknowledged the administrative division of Christianity into five patriarchates: Constantinople, occupying the post of honor over the eastern patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem; and Rome, ruling the West. But he also maintained the Petrine authority of the bishops of Rome by insisting that appeals could be made from the Patriarch of Constantinople to that of Rome. Gregory was no swaggerer as pope, however. He signed himself “Servant of the Servants of God.” As Patriarch of the West, he attended carefully to his duties in Italy, Africa, Gaul (France), and Spain. It was he, too, who sent a mission to England to preach the gospel to the pagan Anglo-Saxons, after the British Christians refused to lift even a finger to save the souls of these invaders.
As a monk and lover of scripture, Gregory did much to regularize the Latin Liturgy. For instance, the Roman Canon of the Mass (Eucharistic Prayer I) clearly derives from the Sacramentary that he approved. “Gregorian Chant” more likely developed in the ninth century, but he also contributed to that development. The turbulence of his era demanded clear and forthright doctrinal statements. Gregory as a writer spoke to the man-in-the-street. His Moralia, based on the Book of Job, was a popular treatise on moral theology; his Pastoral Care, on the duties of bishops and priests; his Dialogues, on holiness, death and the afterlife. The homilies he delivered are more profound. The 800 remaining letters he wrote show the man himself, confessedly imperfect yet wonderfully wise. This literary output caused him to be early ranked with SS. Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome, as one of the four pioneer “Doctors of the Western Church.” Learning and good deeds further merited for him the title of “Great” that posterity has wisely conferred on him.
One admonition, by the way, that Pope Gregory earnestly addressed to Christians of his day and to us as well, is this: Don’t forget to have masses offered for the poor souls in purgatory. Do our dear ones deserve to be left stranded halfway to heaven? --Father Robert F. McNamara
(Year B). The conduct of a prelate ought so far to be superior to the conduct of the people as the life of a shepherd is accustomed to exalt him above the flock. For one whose position is such that the people are called his flock ought anxiously to consider how great a necessity is laid upon him to maintain uprightness. It is necessary, then, that in thought he should be pure, in action firm; discreet in keeping silence; profitable in speech; a near neighbor to every one in sympathy; exalted above all in contemplation; a familiar friend of good livers through humility, unbending against the vices of evil-doers through zeal for righteousness; not relaxing in his care for what is inward by reason of being occupied in outward things, nor neglecting to provide for outward things in his anxiety for what is inward. The pastor should always be pure in thought, inasmuch as no impurity ought to pollute him who has undertaken the office of wiping away the stains of pollution in the hearts of others also; for the hand that would cleanse from dirt must needs be clean, lest, being itself sordid with clinging mire, it soil all the more whatever it touches. The pastor should always be a leader in action, that by his living He may point out the way of life to those who are put under him, and that the flock, which follows the voice and manners of the shepherd, may learn how to walk rather through example than through words. For he who is required by the necessity of his position to speak the highest things is compelled by the same necessity to do the highest things. For that voice more readily penetrates the hearer's heart, which the speaker's life commends, since what he commands by speaking he helps the doing by showing.
The pastor should be discreet in keeping silence, profitable in speech; lest he either utter what ought to be suppressed or suppress what he ought to utter. For, as incautious speaking leads into error, so indiscreet silence leaves in error those who might have been instructed. The pastor ought also to understand how commonly vices pass themselves off as virtues. For often niggardliness excuses itself under the name of frugality, and on the other hand extravagance conceals itself under the name of liberality. Often inordinate carelessness is believed to be loving-kindness, and unbridled wrath is accounted the virtue of spiritual zeal. Often hasty action is taken for promptness, and tardiness for the deliberation of seriousness. Whence it is necessary for the pastor of souls to distinguish with vigilant care and vices between virtues and vices, lest stinginess get possession of his heart while he exults in seeming frugality in expenditure; or, while anything is recklessly wasted, he glory in being, as it were, compassionately liberal; or, in overlooking what he ought to have smitten, he draw on those that are under him to eternal punishment; or, in mercilessly smiting an offense, he himself offend more grievously; or, by rashly anticipating, mar what might have been done properly and gravely; or, by putting off the merit of a good action, change it to something worse.
Since, then, we have shown what manner of man the pastor ought to be, let us now set forth after what manner he should teach. For, as long before us Gregory Nazianzen, of reverend memory, has taught, one and the same exhortation does not suit all, inasmuch as all are not bound together by similarity of character. For the things that profit some often hurt others; seeing that also, for the most part, herbs which nourish some animals are fatal to others; and the gentle hissing that quiets horses incites whelps; and the medicine which abates one disease aggravates another; and the food which invigorates the life of the strong kills little children. Therefore, according to the quality of the hearers ought the discourse of teachers to be fashioned, so as to suit all and each for their several needs, and yet never deviate from the art of common edification. For what are the intent minds of hearers but, so to speak, a kind of harp, which the skillful player, in order to produce a tune possessing harmony, strikes in various ways? And for this reason the strings render back a melodious sound, because they are struck indeed with one quill, but not with one kind of stroke. Whence every teacher also, that he may edify all in the one virtue of charity, ought to touch the hearts of his hearers out of one doctrine, but not with one and the same exhortation. (Book of Pastoral Rule)
Merciful Father,
who chose your bishop Gregory
to be a servant of the servants of God:
grant that, like him,
we may ever long to serve you
by proclaiming your gospel to the nations,
and may ever rejoice to sing your praises;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen. (English Missal)