The pastor rebukes, exhorts, advises, consoles. Whether calming or provoking, his tongue subdues pride, soothes anger, stimulates the weak, inflames indolence, heartens the fugitives, encourages the ungovernable to get the better of them, supports those who have lost courage. He shows the path of salvation to those who are striving for it. We, shepherds, are given the beautiful name of guides. Let your people see in you what they should love, what they should hasten to imitate.

Saint Gregory the Great († 604)
Pope, Doctor of the Church

SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD

“On September 3, 590, in the Lateran Basilica, Gregory was consecrated. As soon as he was invested with his new dignity, without wasting a moment, he took on the titanic task that awaited him. He disdained his worn-out body, which no longer sustained him, finding immense spiritual resources that would compensate for the failings of the flesh. He thought he had few years ahead of him, too few, in any case, to complete the task assigned to him. He had no time to waste, still less to spare himself.
Rome had elected him because the people saw in him a saint, capable of appeasing the divine wrath that was manifesting itself in the form of a plague. Gregory did not think of himself as a saint, but he did consider it his duty to be the people’s intercessor with God.
Overwhelmed by the weight of the task and the secular responsibilities, Gregory wondered whether “to be pope, at this moment, was to be a spiritual leader or a temporal prince.” There was only one answer, the most trying, the most painful: the pope (…) was, by obligation, both. And the situation, in this area as in others, did not show signs of improvement. On the contrary.
With unparalleled generosity, Gregory tried to remedy all the miseries he learned about during his pontificate. The indebted who did not know how to face the sometimes inhuman demands of their creditors, widows who no longer had the means to provide for their children’s education, lonely orphans seeking a solid foothold, destitute religious foundations, captives of the Lombards for whom ransom must be paid… not one did he send away without having notably helped them, each time having granted them much more than they would have dared to ask.”

Anne Bernet (1962-)
Biographer