Gregory the Great, Pope, Saint, Doctor of the Church

This past Monday was not only Labor Day but also the feast of St. Gregory the Great, one of my favorite saints and definitely my most favorite pope. Gregory (b. 540) was the son of a Roman senator and member of a wealthy family. He was educated in Roman law as well as in Greek and Latin. He served as an administrator of the city of Rome for two years and after his father died, he gave a large amount of family properties to the Church and founded six monasteries in Sicily and one in the family mansion in Rome. In 574 he joined this monastery which followed the Rule of St. Basil.

  Gregory would have been happy to spend the rest of his life as a monk, but history had other plans for him.  In 578 he was appointed one of the seven deacons of Rome and in 579 when Rome was under siege by the Lombards, he was sent to Constantinople to ask the Emperor for help. There he became a skilled diplomatic but became involved in a doctrinal dispute and was unable to get the military and material support Rome needed. He was recalled to Rome in 585 and went back to his monastery.

In 589 the River Tiber flooded, destroying Rome’s grain supply and the plague followed. Pope Pelagius died of the plague and the cardinals were unanimous in their choice of Gregory as Pope. Gregory resisted and spent his time organizing disaster relief for the city. This work probably made him even more attractive as a papal candidate and he finally submitted and was consecrated on September 3, 590.

Gregory continued his effects to provide food and relief for the people of Rome and reorganized papal estates to provide funds for this program. He also dealt with the political ramifications of the Lombard threat to Italy. He improved relations with the churches throughout the Western Church. He extended the missionary effort of the Church to the Anglo-Saxons sending forty one missionaries to England. He was the first pope to call himself the servant of the servants of God (servus servorum Dei).

Gregory admired St. Benedict and his Dialogues (Lives of the Saints), with its book on the life of St. Benedict, became a popular source for what we know about St. Benedict. In his writings Gregory wanted to present the faith in a way easily understood and his Homilies on the Gospels and his work on the Book of Job were important works throughout the Middle Ages. His interest in liturgy and liturgical music and the codification and adaptation of plainchant (Gregorian) was foundational in the development of the Church’s liturgy. He is credited with the placement of the Our Father in the Mass and the Christmas Preface and the Prefaces of Easter and the Ascension are credited to him. Finally his book, Pastoral Care, became the medieval management book for bishops, kings and other rulers. After his death in 604 he was buried in St. Peter’s with the epitaph, “Consul of God.”

Gregory lived at a time of great political and social upheaval and unrest. He was always a practical Pope interested in the social and material needs of the People of God but also concerned self aware of his own weaknesses and shortcomings. He loved and respected the Benedictine monastic life and was a great promoter of the monastic lifestyle and virtues. 

Sr. Deborah Harmeling, OSB