Gregory the Dialogist

Icon of St. Gregory the Dialogist

Gregory I, also known as Gregory the Great, served as Pope of Rome from September 3, 590, until his death on March 12, 604. His family had large land holdings in Italy, which he sold to help the poor. After turning his home into a monastery named for St. Andrew, Pope Pelagius II appointed him as an ambassador to Constantinople; however, Gregory disliked the worldly atmosphere of the court and never learned Greek. After his consecration as Bishop of Rome, he negotiated a peace with the Lombards, who besieged Rome, and he dispatched St. Augustine of Canterbury to evangelize Britain. He is known in the East as Gregory the Dialogist for his four-volume Dialogues, in which he wrote of the lives and miracles of the saints of Italy and of the after-life. It is the primary source of the life of St. Benedict of Nursia. His other writings include the Moralia on Job, a commentary on the Book of Job; his Homilies on Ezekiel; the Pastoral Rule, which served as the prime manual for priests in the West for many years; and a great number of other sermons. He added the commemoration of the Apostle Andrew to the embolism on the Lord's Prayer in the ancient Roman Mass; ss a result, it is sometimes called the Gregorian Mass. In the East, he is erroneously credited with devising the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts.

Quotes

"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." -- Pastoral Care

"Every day you provide your bodies with good to keep them from failing. In the same way your good works should be the daily nourishment of your hearts. Your bodies are fed with food and your spirits with good works. You aren't to deny your soul, which is going to live forever, what you grant to your body, which is going to die."

"For to despise the present age, not to love transitory things, unreservedly to stretch out the mind in humility to God and our neighbor, to preserve patience against offered insults and, with patience guarded, to repel the pain of malice from the heart, to give one's property to the poor, not to covet that of others, to esteem the friend in God, on God's account to love even those who are hostile, to mourn at the affliction of a neighbor, not to exult in the death of one who is an enemy, this is the new creature whom the Master of the nations seeks with watchful eye amid the other disciples, saying:"If, then, any be in Christ a new creature, the old things are passed away. Behold all things are made new" (2 Cor. 5:17)."

"We truly love God and keep His commandments if we restrain ourselves from our pleasures. For he who still abandons himself to unlawful desires certainly does not love God, since he contradicts Him in his own intentions... Therefore, he loves God truly, whose mind is not conquered by consent to evil delight. For the more one takes pleasure in lower things, the more he is separated from heavenly love."