Priory Letter-May-2008

Dear Brethren,

            This month, I would like to focus on the person of Gregory the Great. He was a very interesting and unusual character of history. Dowered with noble birth, wealth, and executive ability, he was consecrated Bishop of Rome in the year 590 A.D.. He found his diocese in a sad condition. The Lombards , the warriors of the long spears, the fiercest of all the barbarians( Men who wear beards), had conquered all of northern Italy, and the whole country had been wasted by war and famine and pestilence. Churches and Monasteries had been destroyed, and the clergy were few and discouraged. Gregory declared the Church to be like an old battered ship, leaking on every side.

            At once he proceeded to set his diocese in order. He began by providing for the better education of clergy, and for the improvement of the church services. …especially the music. He introduced the mode of chanting which bears his name, the Gregorian Chant. Lavishly generous to his churches, he himself lived a life of monastic simplicity. This great bishop laid the foundation of the temporal power of the popes, not of deliberate purpose, but by force of political conditions. Because the government of the empire had passed over to Constantinople, and the kingship of Italy was now located at Ravenna, Gregory, an able leader, became practically king at Rome. He was recognized as head and arbiter in temporal affairs as well as spiritual.

            Of the two reasons why Gregory is specially remembered, one is his declaration regarding the authority of the Roman Bishop. For this is in striking contrast to the assertion of Leo the Great, and still more to the later, consummate arrogance of Gregory the Seventh, or Hildebrand. Our Gregory never made claim to a supreme ecclesiastical position. On the contrary. when a certain bishop addressed him as if he were at the head of all bishops, this was Gregory’s reply: “I pray your most sweet holiness to address me no more with the proud title of “Universal Pope”. Away with words which puff up vanity and wound charity.” And to an ambitious Eastern Patriarch he wrote these words: “ This I declare with confidence, that whoso designates himself as Universal Priest, or, in the pride of his heart , consents so to be named, he is the forerunner of Antichrist.”

            The second and more personal reason for remembering Pope Gregory is his sending of the second Augustine to England. Before he became bishop, Gregory noticed those flaxen haired Yorkshire boys standing in the Roman slave market; how he remarked that those young Angles looked like angels; an how, when he was told that they came from the kingdom of Deira and their king was Aella, he declared that they must be saved from God’s wrath (Deira) and taught to sing Alleluia. We also must remember that when he was prevented from going to England himself after his ordination, he sent Augustine in his place. And further we must not forget that when Augustine landed in England in 597, he found the Kentish Queen, Bertha,  to already being a Christian, and the British Bishops could show him their records from very early times.

            Gregory also kept track of many prayers that were used during the Barbarian invasions. It is now called a Sacramentary. Twenty-nine Collects in our Book of Common Prayer come from this record. One of those prayers was said by every Christian at nightfall: “ Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son , our Saviour, Jesus Christ.” Amen.

            Many Blessings to each of you,

            Fr. Vincent, OSA