St. Gregory the Great

Gregory the Great, pope and saint. Doctor of the Church, and writer of the only known biography of St. Benedict. There is a style of chant that bears his name, and he put together what is now called the Gregorian Sacramentary.

Gregory was born in Rome about 540. He was a patrician who received an excellent education. He studied law and by age thirty was appointed Prefect of Rome. When his father died his mother went to a convent and left Gregory very rich. So, he was rich and in the position of a mover and shaker.

A conversion of some sort must be lurking in the dark parts of history, because he left his career, turned his estates in Sicily into six monasteries, and his home in Rome into a Benedictine Monastery called St. Andrew's. It was there that he became a Benedictine.

Pope Pelagius II ordained him Deacon and sent him to Constantinople to beg the Emperor, Tiberias II, for military help against the invading Lombards. Gregory ended up staying in Constantinople for six years. He moved in with monks there and began to write his "mystical and allegorical commentary on the Book of Job." The quote is from guru Fink.

He went back to Rome in 586 and moved back in with the monks at St. Andrew's. On September 3, 590, he was consecrated pope. Age 50, and the first monk ever elected pope. He finished up the Moral Reflection on Job which he'd begun in Constantinople, and began his monumental work, Regula Pastoralis. About half way down the page you will find the Chapter listings of this work. He wrote "the Dialogues, forty short homilies on the Gospels, twenty-two longer homilies on Ezekiel, two homilies on the Song of Songs, part of a commentary on I Samuel, and about eight hundred fifty letters."

"He, therefore, who sets himself to act evilly and yet wishes others to be silent, is a witness against himself, for he wishes himself to be loved more than the truth, which he does not wish to be defended against himself. There is, of course, no man who so lives as not sometimes to sin, but he wishes truth to be loved more than himself, who wills to be spared by no one against the truth. Wherefore, Peter willingly accepted the rebuke of Paul; David willingly hearkened to the reproof of a subject. For good rulers who pay no regard to self-love, take as a homage to their humility the free and sincere words of subjects. But in this regard the office of ruling must be tempered with such great art of moderation, that the minds of subjects, when demonstrating themselves capable of taking right views in some matters, are given freedom of expression, but freedom that does not issue into pride, otherwise, when liberty of speech is granted too generously, the humility of their own lives will be lost." -- Regula Pastoralis