Pope St. Gregory I The Great

Pope St. Gregory I the Great

Who was he? Why was he great?

According to Webster dictionary the word great means (conspicuously large or important, vast, numerous, extreme, long continued, notable, renowned, and magnificent). One would be under the impression that all of these words describe Pope St. Gregory I the great. Pope St. Gregory I the Great was born about 540. He was born into a very wealthy family. In other words he did not earn his money he was born into it.

Gregory's father's name was Gordianus and his mother's name was Silvia. Gordianus was a wealthy aristocrat of noble birth. Gordianus also had two sisters Tarsilla and Emilians who were designated as saints. He owned large estates in Sicily and a mansion on the Caelian Hill of Rome. Little is known about St. Gregory's mother other than she was from a good family. She is also honored as a saint. One would think that he was raised by nothing but saints because it seems that his entire family was saints.

There is not much known about St. Gregory's early years. Because his father was a senator it appeared at first that Gregory was destined for politics. There were quite a few disasters in his early years when Rome was fighting with the Goths and the Narses. He began to study the bible early and practiced Christianity from childhood through his adulthood. He enjoyed meditating and listening to his elder's conversations. His memory and mind were unusually good, therefore he was able to hold and contain a lot of information. It is thought that this is where he got his ideas that the world would come to an end soon.

He was a person that lived in the real world at a time when the political state was terrible. He was a high achiever so he had a lot of status and contacts in his worldly life because he was rich. He believed that the world would come to an end soon because it was so corrupt. He was said to have lived the life of "Carpe Diem" because he believed that the world was so bad that everyone had to "seize the moment" or "make the most of what they had". Christianity was his religion of choice.

He was about thirty years old when he decided to abandon everything and become a monk. He gave up all of his worldly possessions and put all of his energy into his new life. His gave up his Sicilian estates and founded six monasteries and his home was converted into a monastery under the patronage of St. Andrews. He started to wear the "cowl" which means the hooded garment that the monks wore in those days. He began to live a simple life and not wear any of the jewels and clothes that he had worn in the past.

For three years he lived in retirement in the monastery of St. Andrews, which is a period that was thought to be the happiest portion of his life. He was taken out of seclusion against his will in 578. The pope ordained him as one of the seven deacons of Rome. In the spring of 579 he was sent Constantinople along with some of his brethren from St. Andrews and appointed to be the permanent ambassador to Byzantium. Here he prayed and studied the Scriptures daily because the place that he was in was quiet displeasing and against his morals. The place was very worldly and was in an undeveloped state. His ambassadorship lasted about six years.

In the year 585 or 586 he was called back to Rome and returned to St Andrew's with great joy. He became the head of the monastery soon afterwards. (The monastery grew famous under his energetic rule, producing many monks who won renown later, and many vivid pictures of this period may be found in the "Dialogues".} Pope Gregory spent much of his time lecturing on the Holy Scriptures and setting forth the principles for his monks to follow.

In the year 589 there were great disasters in Italy. There were devastating floods and diseases that occurred after the floods. There was an epidemic in Italy at the time and to add to their problems the plague was upon them. According to Webster's