MEMORIAL OF SAINT GREGORY THE GREAT, POPE AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH ~ FEAST DAY: SEPTEMBER 3RD: Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Gregory the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church. Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary and Saint Gregory the Great on this feast day, we humbly pray for the safety and well-being of all students and teachers. We pray for all musicians and those who proclaim the Gospel. We pray for the sick and dying, especially those suffering from cancers and other terminal diseases. We pray for the repose of the souls of the faithful departed, for all widows and widowers and all those who mourn. We also pray for the poor and needy and for peace, love, and unity in our marriages, our families and our world. And we continue to pray for our Holy Father, the Bishops, the Clergy, for vocations to the priesthood and religious life, for the Church, for persecuted christians, for the conversion of sinners, and Christians all over the world.🙏

SAINT GREGORY THE GREAT, POPE AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH: Pope Gregory I, commonly known as Pope St. Gregory the Great (540-604 A.D.) was Bishop of Rome from September 3, 590 to his death. He is one of the great Popes, a great servant of God and reformer, who dedicated himself to the greater glory of God. He is known for instigating the first recorded large-scale mission from Rome, the Gregorian Mission, to convert the then largely pagan Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. Pope St. Gregory the Great reformed the Church in many different ways, reformed the Roman clergy and also influenced the greater Church community, purifying them from the excesses and corruptions of the world, enforcing a new and more rigorous practice and discipline in the Christian community. Pope St. Gregory the Great also spent his time and effort in expanding the reach of the Church and the Christian faith, sending out many missionaries to spread the Good News of God to more and more people all around the world.

Pope St. Gregory the Great was born near the middle of the sixth century at Rome, Italy in 540 into a noble Roman family. He was the son of a wealthy Roman senator, Gordianus, who later renounced the world and became one of the seven deacons of Rome. His mother, Saint Silvia, a canonized saint and two of his aunts are also saints, which provided him with a strong and devout religious upbringing and formation. St. Gregory received a classical education in liberal arts and the law. His skill in grammar and rhetoric were exceptional, and he followed in his father’s political footsteps by serving in public office as the prefect of Rome. After St. Gregory had acquired the usual thorough education, Emperor Justin the Younger appointed him, in 574, Chief Magistrate of Rome, though he was only thirty-four years of age. He was successively senator and prefect of Rome before the age of 30. After five years he resigned and became a monk. Discerning a call to the religious life, he sold all of his possessions and converted his own home into a Benedictine Monastery of St. Andrew. Here he himself assumed the monastic habit in 575, at the age of thirty-five. He used his liquidated assets to build six other Monasteries. After three years of strict monastic life, he was called personally by the Pope to assume the office of a deacon in Rome. From Rome, he was dispatched to Constantinople, to seek aid from the emperor for Rome’s civic troubles, and to aid in resolving the Eastern church’s theological controversies. He returned to Rome in 586, after six years of service as the Papal representative to the eastern Church and empire. Rome faced a series of disasters caused by flooding in 589, followed by the death of Pope Pelagius II the next year. St. Gregory, then serving as abbot in a monastery, reluctantly accepted his election to replace him as the Bishop of Rome. At the age of 50 he was elected pope, serving from 590 to 604. Because of his talent and intelligence he was unanimously chosen to become the Roman Pontiff, the first monk to become Pope. Despite this initial reluctance, however, Pope Gregory began working tirelessly to reform and solidify the Roman liturgy, the disciplines of the Church, the military and economic security of Rome, and the Church’s spreading influence in western Europe. In 14 years he accomplished much for the Mystical Body of Christ. During his lifetime Rome was sacked by invading barbarian hordes, and the city also suffered severe damage from floods and pestilence, causing his pontificate to be an important one.

As Pope, St. Gregory brought his political experience at Rome and Constantinople to bear, in the task of preventing the Catholic Church from becoming subservient to any of the various groups struggling for control of the former imperial capital. As the former abbot of a monastery, he strongly supported the Benedictine movement as a bedrock of the western Church. After seeing English children being sold as slaves in Rome, he sent 40 monks, including St. Augustine of Canterbury, from his own monastery to make “the Angles angels.” He sent missionaries to England, and is given much of the credit for the nation’s conversion. England owes her conversion to him. At a period when the invasion of the barbarian Lombards created a new situation in Europe, he played a great part in winning them for Christ. When Rome itself was under attack, he personally went to interview the Lombard King. At the same time he watched equally over the holiness of the clergy and the maintenance of Church discipline, the temporal interests of his people of Rome and the spiritual interests of all Christendom. He removed unworthy priests from office, forbade taking money for many services, and emptied the papal treasury to ransom prisoners of the Lombards and to care for persecuted Jews and victims of plague and famine. These deeds and others made him, in the words of an antiphon in his office, “the Father of the City, the joy of the World.” In undertaking these works, Pope Gregory saw himself as the “servant of the servants of God.” He was the first of the Bishops of Rome to popularize the now-traditional Papal title, which referred to Christ’s command that those in the highest position of leadership should be “the last of all and the servant of all.”

St. Gregory reformed the liturgy, and it still contains several of his most beautiful prayers. He is most commonly known for promoting and standardizing the sacred music of liturgical worship, now called “Gregorian Chant.” This recalls this great Pope’s work in the development of the Church’s music. His commentaries on Holy Scripture exercised a considerable influence on Christian thought in the Middle Ages. He regulated the liturgy into a more synchronous form, and also brought the Church liturgy both in the West and the East to be more coordinated and laid the foundations of what today would become the Holy Mass as well as the Divine Liturgy in the Eastern Church. Pope St. Gregory wrote extensively in various letters and also other works, in opposing the various heresies of the day and in helping to guide the members of the faithful to turn back towards the Lord with faith. St. Gregory brought stability and order to the Church in a time of great societal and cultural upheaval. His profound influence on the doctrine, organization, and discipline of the Church cannot be underestimated, thus earning him the title “The Great” which he shares with only two other popes. His zeal extended over the entire known world, he was in contact with all the Churches of Christendom, and, in spite of his bodily sufferings and innumerable labors, he found time to compose a great number of works. Known above all for his magnificent contributions to the Liturgy of the Mass and Office. For his abundant doctrinal and spiritual writings he is also considered to be one of the four great Doctors of the Latin Church. Even as he undertook to consolidate Papal power and shore up the crumbling Roman west, St. Gregory the Great maintained a humble sense of his mission as a servant and pastor of souls, from the time of his election until his death. Pope St. Gregory died on March 12, 604. His body lies at St. Peter’s in Rome. Pope St. Gregory the Great is the Patron Saint of choir boys; educators; gout; masons; music; musicians; choirs; singers; stonecutters; teachers; popes; students; scholars; against plague; against gout; against fever; England; West Indies  His feast day is September 3rd.

QUOTES OF SAINT GREGORY THE GREAT: ☆”The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist.” ☆”Act in such a way that your humility may not be weakness, nor your authority be severity. Justice must be accompanied by humility, that humility may render justice lovable.” ☆“The Holy Bible is like a mirror before our mind’s eye. In it we see our inner face. From the Scriptures we can learn our spiritual deformities and beauties. And there too we discover the progress we are making and how far we are from perfection.”

PRAYER: God, You look upon Your people with compassion and rule them with love. Through the intercession of Pope St. Gregory, fill us with the Spirit of wisdom so that Your people may grow in holiness and that both pastors and flock may obtain eternal joy. Amen 🙏