Pope St. Gregory the Great was born in the year 540. Gregory was the brilliant and energetic son of a wealthy Roman aristocrat named Gordianus and his wife, St. Sylvia. At 33, he was already mayor of Rome but soon gave up all worldly ambitions and joined the Benedictines, whom the invading Lombards had driven from Monte Cassino to Rome. From 579 to 586, he acted as Papal legate in Constantinople and, upon his return, was elected Abbot of his monastery on the Coelian Hill. Three years later, a terrible flood happened, causing the Papal granaries to be destroyed, leading to a deadly disease outbreak and greatly reducing the population. It even carried off the Pope, and a very reluctant Gregory, who had been the Pope's chief adviser for some years, was unanimously elected to succeed him in 590, the first case of a monk becoming Pope.
One of Pope Gregory's first acts was to call the Roman people to converge in seven great penitential processions upon the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore to implore God's pardon and the cessation of the plague. Legend has it that the Archangel Michael then appeared above Hadrian's tomb and sheathed his sword, thus indicating the end of the dreaded disease. Gregory led the Church for only 14 years, but his work was of such significant and far-reaching consequence that he is considered the most notable Pope of the first 1000 years. His admirable Liber Pastoralis Curae, which sets forth his ideas on the duties of a bishop, has inspired the Catholic Episcopate for centuries. Living with monastic frugality, he continued to wear his coarse monk's habit on all but formal occasions. He combated simony, incontinence, heresy, and injustice, and promoted a wider interest in the Church's liturgy and sacred music.
St. Gregory's charity knew no bounds. In administering the large Church lands dispersed throughout Italy and Africa, Gregory considered himself and his agents trustees under Christ's love for the benefit of the poor. In his ever-strained relations with the Emperor in Constantinople, Gregory declared it the duty of the secular power to protect "the peace of the faith," insisting that the Pope was supreme in all ecclesiastical matters. No decree of a Council or Synod was to be held valid without Papal approval. St. Gregory said, "No sacrifice can be more acceptable to God than labor with genuine zeal for the saving of souls." He labored with zeal at the conversion of the Lombards in Italy, the Goths in Spain, the pagans in Gaul, and sent St. Augustine and 40 monks to re-convert Saxon England in 596. He also arranged for the freeing and education of likely English slave boys who might later return home as missionaries. St. Gregory, who died on March 12, 604, is venerated as the patron of singers, scholars, and teachers. He is also honored as a Doctor of the Church.
Pope St. Gregory, pray for us that we may labor with genuine zeal for the salvation of souls.
Jonathan Fabian Ginunggil,
Most High Servant,
Jesus, Mary, Joseph Ministry of Love
(Blessed and Saints and the Nine Choirs of Angels)
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