Rev. José Mario O. Mandía
jmom.honlam.org
We have taken up three of the four great Fathers of the Western Church: St Ambrose of Milan (cf. CF 33); St Jerome (cf. CF 35 & 36); and St Augustine (cf. CF 41 & 42). Today, we will discuss the fourth: St Gregory the Great. Pope Gregory I was the 63rd successor of Saint Peter, and was Pope from 590 to 604.
Gregory was born into a rich family in Rome about 540. The family was known for their fidelity to the faith. Before Gregory, the family had already produced two Popes: Felix III (483-492) and Agapetus (535-536). His parents Gordian and Sylva, as well as two aunts (sisters of his father) Aemiliana and Tharsilla, are venerated as saints.
His father’s administrative career inspired Gregory to follow the same path. His leadership qualities helped him go up the ranks. In 572, he became Prefect of Rome.
He was not satisfied with his worldly success, however, and he decided “to withdraw to his home to begin the monastic life, transforming his family home into the monastery of St Andrew on the Coelian Hill. This period of monastic life, the life of permanent dialogue with the Lord in listening to his word, constituted a perennial nostalgia which he referred to ever anew and ever more in his homilies. In the midst of the pressure of pastoral worries, he often recalled it in his writings as a happy time of recollection in God, dedication to prayer and peaceful immersion in study. Thus, he could acquire that deep understanding of Sacred Scripture and of the Fathers of the Church that later served him in his work (Benedict XVI, General Address, 28 May 2008).
That period in his life did not last long, however. Pope Pelagius II (Pope from 579-590), who had seen Gregory’s effective administrative skills, appointed him deacon in 579 and sent him to Constantinople as his nuncio to help resolve the Monophysite controversy and to ask the Byzantine Emperor Tiberius II’s support to contain the Lombard invaders who were besieging Rome.
In 585 or 586, the Pope called him back to Rome and asked him to be his secretary. At that time, Rome suffered from continual rain, flooding, famine and a plague. The plague claimed the life of Pope Pelagius II (579-590), and the clergy, the people and the senate of Rome unanimously chose Gregory as successor to the See of Peter. Gregory resisted and tried to flee, but finally gave in.
“From the beginning he showed a singularly enlightened vision of reality with which he had to deal, an extraordinary capacity for work confronting both ecclesial and civil affairs, a constant and even balance in making decisions, at times with courage, imposed on him by his office” (General Address, 28 May 2008).
In seeking a peaceful solution to the problem of the Lombards and the other Germanic tribes, he saw them not as barbarians, but as souls that needed to hear the Good News. He worked on two fronts: diplomatic-political engagement on one hand, and evangelization on the other. He thus fostered “mutual respect and peaceful coexistence between Italians, Imperials and Lombards. He was concerned with the conversion of the young people and the new civil structure of Europe: the Visigoths of Spain, the Franks, the Saxons, the immigrants in Britain and the Lombards, were the privileged recipients of his evangelizing mission” (General Address, 28 May 2008). To England he sent St Augustine of Canterbury with a group of monks to spread the faith there.
While he was working on bringing peace and spreading the Gospel, he did not neglect the material needs of the people: despite his poor health, “he bought and distributed grain, assisted those in need, helped priests, monks and nuns who lived in poverty, paid the ransom for citizens held captive by the Lombards and purchased armistices and truces” (General Address, 28 May 2008). Gregory saw himself as the servus servorum Dei – servant of the servants of God.
His administrative skills came in handy when he reorganized the Church in such a way that the goods of the Church were used properly and effectively.
The works of St Gregory the Great include 800 letters from where we can see his political acumen, his apostolic zeal, his magnanimity and his humility.
In the Regula pastoralis (‘Pastoral Rule’), Gregory explains the duties and obligations not only of the Bishop but of all the clergy in the spiritual formation of their flock. He pointed out the importance of teaching through good example. Finally, when all is said and done, Gregory writes: “”When one is pleased to have achieved many virtues, it is well to reflect on one’s own inadequacies and to humble oneself: instead of considering the good accomplished, it is necessary to consider what was neglected.”
He also wrote an exegetical work – Moralia in Iob (‘Moral Commentary on the Book of Job’), where he explains not only the literal and allegorical meaning of the book, but also its moral sense (cf. CCC 115-118). He was convinced that the Word of God must find its way into the life of the Christian. Pope Benedict XVI said that the Moralia can be considered “a kind of summa of Christian morality” in the Middle Ages (General Address, 28 May 2008). This is also evident in his Homilies on Ezekiel where he says that “the preacher must dip his pen into the blood of his heart; then he can also reach the ear of his neighbor.” He believed that “to approach the Scripture simply to satisfy one’s own desire for knowledge means to succumb to the temptation of pride and thus to expose oneself to the risk of sliding into heresy” (General Address, 28 May 2008). The same approach can be said of the Pope’s Homilies on the Gospel.
Finally, in his Dialogues, Pope Gregory addresses his friend Peter, a deacon, “who was convinced that customs were so corrupt as to impede the rise of saints as in times past.” Here, “Gregory demonstrated just the opposite: holiness is always possible, even in difficult times. He proved it by narrating the life of contemporaries or those who had died recently, who could well be considered saints, even if not canonized (General Address, 28 May 2008). In Book II, he brings up the example of Benedict of Nursia. Thanks to Gregory, we have the only ancient text that talks about Saint Benedict in detail.
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