“NEWS OF HIM SPREAD EVERYWHERE IN THE SURROUNDING REGION.” Today, September 3rd marks the feast of the one of the greatest saints in the Catholic Church. He is so great that he was even given the title of “the Great”; Pope Saint Gregory the Great. Saint Gregory the Great is one of the great links (another being Saint Isidore of Seville) that connects the early Church (Saint Paul to Saint Augustine) to the Middle Ages. From 400 to 600 AD there was much chaos. Saint Gregory was faithful to the traditions of the Church. The root meaning of the Latin word tradtio is to hand over or to hand down. Saint Gregory is known for “handing down” or “handing over” important traditions handed to him such as the authority of the bishop, church leadership, personal holiness, charity, missions and monastic life. Childhood When was St. Gregory the Great born? The exact day of when Gregory the Great was born is unknown. It is believed he was born in the year 540 AD. His parents, Gordianus his father and Silvia, who would become a saint, his mother, were both well off financially. Both parents worked closely with the Church and the state of Italy. During the sixth century there was great turmoil in the country of Italy. Many different Goth tribes came from the north to sack Italy and Rome. Gregory grew up mostly in Sicily, and at the time he was being raised, the Roman Empire was in decay. This decaying empire would eventually fall into Gregory’s lap when he became pope. Growing up in a noble family Gregory was able to get a very good education. He exceeded expectations and excelled greatly. St. Gregory of Tours accounted when it came to Gregory the Great’s grammar, dialectic and rhetoric, “…he was second to none…” (Richards (1980), page 26.) It is also believed he took some legal courses and may have thought to look into legal work. However, he absolutely loved scripture and religious studies. This does not mean that Gregory was a great philosopher or even a theologian in a standard way. He was a trained Roman lawyer and administrator. He would later become a great preacher and physician of souls. Life of a Mayor By the time he was around thirty-four, he had obtained one of the most prestigious positions in the city of Rome, the office of prefect. While it had lost some of its shine because of the falling of the Roman Empire, it was still the highest civil dignity in the city. However, even being at the highest position in Rome he could be, Gregory felt empty inside, and after a long time of prayer and discernment he left all of it to become a monk. What was Gregory able to do prefect of Rome? Gregory was everything but wanted nothing. His beloved city of Rome was, at its height, the busy city of one million people and the center of the world. After Rome was sacked in 410AD over the next 120 years the population went from 1 million to 40,000. This would be similar to a city the size of Dallas, San Antonio, or Phoenix people depopulating to the size any small suburban city. Rome became a ghost town. The capital of the Roman Empire had moved to the East in Constantinople and the barbarian invaders made Ravenna in Northern Italy their capital. Rome was an unwanted city with poverty, disease and destruction. Gregory wanted and loved Rome. His dad was a wealthy senator of Rome who gave Gregory his inheritance. At the age of thirty, Gregory was not only one of the wealthiest people in Rome, but also one of the most influential. Life of a Monk When did Gregory the Great become a monk? Saint Gregory shocked the city of Rome and his friends in family when he gave up all his wealth to become a simple humble monk entering one of the monasteries he founded. Saint Gregory became a monk in 574AD when he converted his own house into a monastery. He also founded six other monasteries from his estates in Sicily. In the monastic life Gregory the Great found his solace. He absolutely loved being a monk, and wished to live out his life in prayer and fasting. What religious order was Gregory the Great? There is some debate as to whether he followed the Augustinian order or the Rule of St. Benedict. It is believed by many theologians that Gregory the Great and the monks that followed him followed the Rule of St. Benedict. Gregory the Great was a man of great charity, justice, and mercy. When Gregory was abbot, one monk Justus became sick and confessed that he stole three coins and hid them. Gregory commanded that he be secluded as punishment and that no monk visit him. When Justus died he was buried far from the other monks and bury in dung with the three coins. 30 days after his death Gregory began to feel bad about how strict he was with the monk and offered up 30 masses in a row, day after day, for Justus who he believed was suffering in purgatory. After the 30 days Justus appeared to one of the monks and told the brother that he was now in heaven with the Saints. This custom of 30 masses offered for the dead continues to today and is called “Gregorian Masses” His brief time as a monk was Gregory’s fondest time in his life. In 578, the pope ordained Gregory one of the seven deacons of Rome. Gregory was a great candidate because he was well-respected and had a good reputation. A Deacon’s role is to assist the Bishop. At the time, the Bishop of Rome, Pope Pelagius II was under attack by the Lombards and needed Gregory’s assistance. Gregory was sent to Constantinople as an ambassador to request help from the Byzantines. He stayed there for six years. Around 585AD, he was allowed to go back to Rome, and his beloved monastery. He had great renewal of energy and helped produce many fruits by the way of monks. He severed as a secretary to Pelagius II, and worked by teaching scripture to his monks. In 589-590, natural disasters left Italy, and specifically Rome in ruins, and to make matters worse, Pelagius II died in February of 590AD. Papacy When and how did Gregory become pope? Back in the sixth century the Church did not have cardinals or a conclave to elect the next pope like we do today. The city of Rome (clergy and laity) elected their bishop. All unanimously elected Gregory to be the successor to Peter. Gregory did not want to become pope, and even was planning to flee Rome. The people had to carry Gregory to Saint Peter’s and consecrated him as pope on September 3rd, 590. How long was Gregory pope? Saint Gregory the Great was pope for fourteen years until he died in 604 AD What did Pope Saint Gregory the Great do as pope? Pope Saint Gregory had earned his title as “the Great” while as the Pope. His work on the Roman Liturgy is still seen in today’s Mass. Secularly, he helped keep the Goths and Lombards at bay and out of Rome. His helped re-establish the supremacy of papal authority. During Gregory’s time, there was a power shift from Rome in the West to Constantinople in the East. Constantinople was so powerful that the Patriarch (Bishop) of Constantinople gave himself the title “ecumenical patriarch” a title claiming to be equal to the bishop of Rome. Gregory opposed the title and chose to not rely on the East, but rather have Rome help itself through hard work and negotiation with the barbarians especially the Franks. Other key areas of impact were in music, writing, missionary work, and the order of Bishops. He was also deeply loved to serve the poor. He was always looking to take care of the poor in Rome. There are stories of Pope Gregory the Great inviting a few of the poor from Rome each night to eat with him. He would give them some food, money, clothing, and anything else they needed before he let them leave. He would then bring in different people the next night. He truly wanted to live out the beatitudes. Gregory began the tradition of using the treasury of the Church for the welfare of the people so that taxes would not have to be raised. To this day, the treasury of the Church, including local parishes, is used to assist the poor and the sick. How did Pope Gregory help with missionary work? Pope Gregory the Great is famous for rejuvenating the evangelization efforts in Europe. In particular, He was the first to send missionaries to present day England. It was because of his efforts that England became Catholic. England has a fondest for Gregory and he is the patron of England. Gregory once met some slaves that were being brought from England to Rome, he found out that they did not know about Christ so he sent one of his best monk, St. Augustine of Canterbury, and 40 other monks to England thus bringing the faith to England. How did he help the order of Bishops? He was the first to coin the term “servant of servants” in relation to being pope and bishop of Rome. He wrote the work “The Rule of Pastors” or “Book of Pastoral Care” which is still used for Bishops in order to study what the role is of a bishop. This book was written to bishops teaching them how to take care of souls; Gregory said that the governing of souls is the art of arts. The book was the #1 guide for the next 400 years. The book was so influential it became the norm for forming priests before seminaries were even established. King Alfred of England (9th century) and Charlemagne (8th century) gave it to the bishops in their regions. Gregory was a holy man and thus was given the gift to form souls. He did this in the Benedictine tradition of prayer and work. Prayer leads to work, work leads to prayer: A tradition that is followed to this day in the monastic life. Gregory was a man of conversion. He said that just like the eyes cannot look directly at the sun, the soul cannot look directly at God in this life. The soul can gaze briefly at God as sun coming through a window but just like the sun through a window reveals dust particles, contemplation and a glimpse of God reveals (dust) sin / flaws of the soul. What other works did Saint Gregory write? He wrote many things including titles “Sermons” and “Dialogues” which talked about various books of scripture, and the life of Saint Benedict. He also wrote over 850 letters to various bishops, priests, kings, and other people. How did Gregory help with music? Pope Gregory was the first pope to help write down and formulate music notation and rhythm. Modern musical notation and theory, when traced back to the very beginning, starts with Saint Gregory the Great. He founded two schools of Chant and is credited with Gregorian chant in Mass and in the Liturgy of the Hours. How did Gregory the Great impact the Mass? In the Roman Rite there are two main books used in the Mass. The first is the Lectionary, which contains the readings for each day and feast of the Liturgical Year. The second is the Sacramentary, which contains the Order of the Mass, all the prayers including the ordinaries and propers. The Gregorian Sacramentary dating to the 6th Century is one of the first Sacramentaries of the Church. At the time of Gregory there were many variations in the liturgy, Gregory worked to make the Roman Rite more uniform and narrowed down the variations in the liturgy to three [the Collect (opening prayer), the Secret or Preface (prayers before the Sanctus), and the Postcommunion (prayer after communion)]. “The Order of Mass as found in the 1570 Missal of St. Pius V (1566-1572), apart from minor additions and amplifications, corresponds very closely with the Order established by St. Gregory.” Charlemagne who lived about 200 years after Gregory would make the Roman Rite as used in the city of Rome as the official liturgy (Mass) of his empire. Not only was Charlemagne able to unite most of Western Europe under his reign, he was also able to unify and promote the Roman Rite in the West, making it the norm. “Charlemagne has asked for a Roman Mass book (a Gregorian Sacramentary) because he wished to standardize the liturgy in his Empire in accordance with the Roman usage. He was helped in this task by Alcuin, an English monk…” Other special things of Pope Saint Gregory the Great: He was the first religious monk to become pope. When he died on March 12th 604 AD, He was immediately made a saint; He is one of the four western church fathers and is a Doctor of the Church. What is a “Doctor of the Church”? How does one become a Doctor of the Church? A doctor of the church is “a title given since the Middle Ages to certain saints whose writing or preaching is outstanding for guiding the faithful in all periods of the Church’s history. Originally the Western Fathers of the Church, Gregory the Great, Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome, were considered the great doctors of the Church. But the Church has officially added many more names to the original four. How many doctors’ are there? There are currently thirty-five doctors of the Catholic Church. The list includes the following: St. Albert the Great, St. Alphonsus Liguori, St. Ambrose, St. Anselm, St. Anthony of Padua, St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, St. Basil the Great, St. Bede the Venerable, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Bonaventure, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Ephraem Syrus, St. Francis de Sales, St. Gregory I the Great, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Hilary of Poitiers, St. Isidore of Seville, St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, St. John Damascene, St. John of the Cross, St. Lawrence of Brindisi, St. Leo I the Great, St. Peter Canisius, St. Peter Chrysologus, St. Peter Damian, St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Thomas Aquinas, and recently St. John Avila and St. Heldegard of Bingen. GOSPEL - Luke 4:31-37 Jesus went down to Capernaum, a town of Galilee. He taught them on the sabbath, and they were astonished at his teaching because he spoke with authority. In the synagogue there was a man with the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out in a loud voice, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are-the Holy One of God!" Jesus rebuked him and said, "Be quiet! Come out of him!" Then the demon threw the man down in front of them and came out of him without doing him any harm. They were all amazed and said to one another, "What is there about his word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out." And news of him spread everywhere in the surrounding region.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Sep 2013 16:33:10 +0000
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