Gregory was born into a wealthy Patrician family in Rome. His father was a Senator and his mother, Sylvia, is a canonized Saint. At the age of thirty he was appointed Governor of Rome. After three years he resigned from that prestigious office, converted his palatial mansion into a monastery and became a monk himself. Following his ordination as priest, Gregory was appointed one of the seven Deacons of Rome. In the meanwhile he served for six years as the Pope’s legate in the imperial court at Constantinople. On his return, he rejoined his monastery at St. Andrew’s as its abbot. At the death of the reigning Pontiff Pelagius in 590, Gregory was elected Pope by the common acclamation of the clergy and laity of Rome.
The Pontificate of Gregory I coincided with the tumultuous era of the Western Empire and its decline. The golden age of Imperial Rome had become history as anarchy and chaos reigned supreme. Rome was in ruins, poverty was rampant, Barbarians invaded Italy andpounded the gates of the Eternal City and civil administration collapsed everywhere. The new Pope, blessed with administrative skill and statesmanship, rose to the occasion. He emptied the papal treasury to support the victims of plague, floods and famine and to ransom prisoners and slaves from the Lombards. As secular authority collapsed in the West, Gregory stepped forward and exercised the functions of the Mayor of Rome and brought order out of chaos and peace out of strife. The Pope courageously walked to the gates of Rome and personally negotiated peace with the Lombard King and persuaded him to spare Rome from destruction. The power of his strong personality was felt through out the world. It was often said that the See of Peter stood out in Western Europe like a towering lighthouse in a stormy sea.
Pope Gregory’s reform within the Church was no less momentous. He introduced the “Gregorian Chant,” abolished the evil practice of simony, promoted monastic life, restored ecclesiastical discipline and turned out to be prodigious in charities. He dispatched St. Augustine of Canterbury and forty monks from St. Andrew’s monastery to bring Christianity to England. His contribution to the evangelization of that country is summarized in the inscription on his tomb in Rome: “He brought the Christian Truth to English Saxons.” Due to his amazing achievements in a tumultuous age, the Pope is affectionately called “the Great” while his writings on Theology, lives of the Saints, letters and sermons have earned him the title “Doctor,” that is, an eminent and reliable teacher of the Church. (St.Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome and St. Gregory, the Great, are the four “Doctors” of the Western Church.). Despite his physical ailments he laboured till his last day which came on March 12, 604. Shortly after his demise, Gregory was canonized by common acclamation.
Reflection: Pope Gregory, the Great, used to state that the Holy Bible was like a mirror in which we see our inner face. It is from the Scriptures that we learn our spiritual deformities, appreciate our inner beauties and discover our progress in virtue.
To renounce what one has is a minor thing; but to renounce what one is (=to part with himself), that is asking a lot.(St. Gregory, the Great.)
