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Feast
Day: September 03
Also
known as
Gregory I; Father of the Fathers
Profile
Son of a wealthy Roman
senator and Saint Silvia, nephew of Saint Emiliana,
and trained by the finest teachers in Rome.
Prefect of Rome
for a year, then he sold his possessions, turned his home into a Benedictine
monastery,
and used his money to build six monasteries
in Sicily
and one in Rome.
Monk.
Benedictine.
Upon seeing English
children being sold in the Roman Forum, he became a missionary
to England.
Elected
Pope
by unanimous acclamation on 3
September 590. Sent Saint Augustine
of Canterbury and a company of monks
to evangelize England,
and other missionaries to France,
Spain,
and Africa.
Collected the melodies and plain chant now known as Gregorian Chants.
One of the four great Doctors
of the Latin Church. Wrote seminal works on the Mass and Office.
Born
c.540 @ Rome,
Italy
Papal
Ascension
3
September 590
Died
12
March 604 @ Rome
Patronage
choir boys,
educators,
England,
gout,
masons,
musicians,
papacy,
plague,
Popes,
schoolchildren,
singers,
stone masons,
stonecutters,
students,
teachers,
West Indies
Representation
crozier, dove, tiara; pope
working on sheet music; pope
writing
Reading
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.
Saint
Gregory the Great
If we knew at what time we were to depart from this world, we would be able
to select a season for pleasure and another for repentance. But God, who
has promised pardon to every repentant sinner, has not promised us
tomorrow. Therefore we must always dread the final day, which we can never
foresee. This very day is a day of truce, a day for conversion. And yet we
refuse to cry over the evil we have done! Not only do we not weep for the
sins we have committed, we even add to them....
If
we are, in fact, now occupied in good deeds, we should not attribute the
strength with which we are doing them to ourselves. We must not count on
ourselves, because even if we know what kind of person we are today, we do
not know what we will be tomorrow. Nobody must rejoice in the security of
their own good deeds. As long as we are still experiencing the
uncertainties of this life, we do not know what end may follow...we must
not trust in our own virtues.
Saint
Gregory the Great, from Be Friends of God
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