BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Friday, September 3, 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

ST. POPE GREGORY THE GREAT (Italy, ca 540-624)
Civilian Prefect of Rome, Monk and Abbot, Papal Deacon and Envoy, Pope (590-604), Doctor of the Church
In 2008, Benedict XVI devoted two Wednesday catecheses to his great predecessor
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20080528...
Gregory's parents Gordian and Sylvia, Roman patricians of the Anicia clan and devout Christians, are both venerated as saints. A great-great-grand-uncle was Pope Felix III (483-492) and one of his immediate predecessors Agapetus (535-536) was also from his clan. Gregory is generally considered to have established the medieval Papacy and propagated medieval spirituality as embodied in St. Benedict. He is well-known for his writings, which were more prolific than those of any of his predecessors as Pope [and probably not matched by any other Pope until Benedict XVI] but his most important works were written as Pope. In The Rule for Pastors written at the start of his Pontificate, he described the ideal bishop as teacher and guide of his flock. In Book 2 of his Dialogs, he wrote about the 'Life and Miracles of St. Benedict of Nursia' who had died when Gregory was a child; the work became the primary historical source for Benedict's biography. His homilies continue to be quoted today and some 860 of letters he wrote as Pope were conserved. Gregory started life in the footsteps of his father as a Roman administrator, becoming Prefect of Rome when he was 32. After a few years, he left civilian life to become a monk, converting the family home into a monastery. After he was ordained, he was named one of the Pope's seven deacons for Rome, but in 679, Pelagius II named him his ambassador to the imperial court in Constantinople, which by then was the capital of the Roman Empire. He served there for six years, then chose to return to his monastery where he became abbot. But in 590, he was elected Pope by acclamation to succeed Pelagius. At the time, the papacy had little influence outside Italy. Gregory sought from the start to reaffirm the primacy of Rome as his predecessor Leo the Great had done. He considered evangelization of Europe's pagan lands a priority, and in this context, he sent a mission to England led by the future St. Augustine of Canterbury. Gregory also required all his bishops to engage in systematic assistance to the poor, an activity which was responsible for reestablishing the prestige and influence of the papacy in Italy against the distant imperial rule in Constantinople. His papacy was also characterized by his tireless efforts at peacemaking with pagan monarchs. He revitalized the liturgy, introducing the use of prayers in the Canon of the Mass that vary according to the liturgical season. The so-called Tridentine Mass of 1570, adopted after the Council of Trent, in effect, simply formalized the rubrics of the Mass as it had been celebrated since the time of Pope Gregory, and 'Gregorian rite' is still interchangeably used as a term for the Tridentine Mass. Around 800, when a system of notation was devised for the plainsong used in liturgy, it came to be called Gregorian chant although he had died two centuries earlier. As Benedict XVI has pointed out, "Gregory remained a simple monk at heart.. and wanted to be simply servus servorum Dei, servant of the servants of God". He coined the phrase, which has become one of the 'titles' for the Supreme Pontiff. It manifested "his way of living and acting, convinced that a bishop should, above all, imitate the humility of God and follow Christ in this way".
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/090310.shtml


OR today.

Page 1 highlights the meeting between the Holy Father and Israeli President Shimon Peres yesterday, resonating with the start of
direct peace talks in Washington between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. Other Page 1
stories: Continuing alarm over unemployment in the US; Mogadishu hospitals and refugee camps overburdened by victims of the
Islamic extremist insurgency against the Somali government; and a story about rock singer Nina Hagen who has found faith. In
the inside pages, the recently completed 'cleaning up' of Michelangelo's Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.


THE POPE'S DAY

The Holy Father met today with

- Bishops of Brazil (Northeast Sector III) on ad limina visit.


The Vatican also released the text of the Holy Father's message for World Youth Day 2011 to be held
in Madrid next August.