St Gregory the Great: Life, Prayer, Patron and Feast Day

St Gregory the Great (c. 540-604) was the prefect of Rome who gave his fortune to the poor, became a monk, and was made pope against his will in 590, in a city ravaged by plague, floods and the Lombard wars. He sent St Augustine and forty monks to convert the English, wrote the Pastoral Rule, the Dialogues and the Moralia on Job, called himself "servant of the servants of God", and is one of the four great Doctors of the Latin Church. In the calendar of 1962 his feast falls on 12 March, the day of his death; here is his life, what he is known for and patron of, and the prayers of his Mass in the Missal of 1962.

Who was St Gregory the Great?

Gregory was born in Rome about the year 540; the exact year is not known. His family was one of the few patrician families left in the city and had already given the Church two popes, Agapitus I and Felix III, Gregory's great-great-grandfather. His father, Gordian, was a senator with estates in Sicily and a house on the Coelian Hill; his mother, Silvia, is named as a saint in the Roman Martyrology.

He received the best education Rome could still give and entered public life. When the Lombards invaded Italy and came alarmingly near Rome, Gregory, at about thirty, held the highest civil office in the city: he was prefect of Rome. Butler says he won the respect and esteem of the Romans, and kept all his life the sense of order he learnt in that office.

But he had long felt the call to a higher life. On his father's death, the Breviary relates, he founded six monasteries on his Sicilian estates and a seventh in his own house in Rome, on the Clivus Scauri, under the patronage of St Andrew. There he became a monk himself. He was one of the richest men in Rome and gave up everything. Those few years in the cloister, he said later, were the happiest of his life, though his excessive fasting ruined his health and left him with the painful infirmities that tormented him to the end.

From monk to pope

The Church would not leave such a man in his cell. He was ordained a deacon of the Roman Church, and Pope Pelagius II sent him as his ambassador (apocrisiarius) to the imperial court at Constantinople. He knew no Greek, disliked the court and its intrigues, and lived there as a monk with brethren from St Andrew's. At Constantinople he befriended St Leander of Seville, at whose request he began his great commentary on the Book of Job, the Moralia. The Breviary adds that he refuted the patriarch Eutychius, who denied that our bodies would rise in true flesh, so thoroughly that the emperor had his book burnt, and that Eutychius on his deathbed, holding the skin of his own hand, confessed: "We shall all rise again in this flesh."

Recalled to Rome about 586, Gregory became abbot of St Andrew's. In January 590, after a flood of the Tiber, the plague returned and carried off Pelagius II. The clergy and people chose Gregory unanimously. While waiting for the emperor's confirmation, which he begged him to refuse, he ordered a great penitential procession: seven columns of clergy and people set out from seven churches and met at St Mary Major, chanting Kyrie eleison while people fell dead around them. The plague abated. A later legend, which Butler notes no early historian mentions, says that St Michael was seen sheathing his sword above the tomb of Hadrian; the legend explains the angel that now crowns the building and the name of Sant'Angelo it has borne since the tenth century.

Gregory still tried to flee. The Breviary says he hid in disguise in a cave and was discovered by a column of fire; Gregory of Tours, a contemporary, says simply that "while he was preparing to run away and hide himself, he was seized and carried off to the basilica of St Peter". He was consecrated there on 3 September 590.

What is St Gregory the Great known for?

The Apostle of the English

Of all his works the conversion of England lay closest to his heart. Bede tells the famous story of the fair-haired boys Gregory saw for sale in the Roman market: told they were Angli, he answered that they had the faces of angels, Angeli. Butler warns that modern historians doubt the story, at least its puns, though the scene in the market may well be true. What is certain is that Gregory, hearing that the English desired the faith, chose forty monks from his own monastery of St Andrew and sent them under St Augustine. "If Gregory be not an apostle to others," wrote Bede, "he is one to us, for we are the seal of his apostleship in the Lord." The Breviary repeats Bede's title: the Apostle of England.

The servant of the servants of God

When John the Faster, patriarch of Constantinople, took the title of "ecumenical" or universal patriarch, Gregory protested, and for himself chose the proudly humble title Servus servorum Dei, servant of the servants of God, which the popes still use. He was no less firm in upholding the dignity of the Apostolic See. He ransomed captives from the Lombards, filled the granaries of Rome against famine, kept a list of the poor to whom alms were given, and, when no help came from Constantinople, went out himself in 593 to meet the Lombard king Agilulf before the walls and persuaded him to withdraw. The Breviary adds that he received pilgrims at his table every day, and that among them he once received an Angel, and once the Lord of the Angels, under a pilgrim's face.

The Pastoral Rule, the Dialogues and the Moralia

His Pastoral Rule (Regula Pastoralis) describes the bishop as a physician of souls, whose first duties are preaching and discipline. For centuries it formed the clergy of the West: St Augustine took it to England, King Alfred translated it into English, and the councils of Charlemagne's time required every bishop to have a copy. His Dialogues (593) gathered the stories of holiness and miracles told of the saints of Italy; their second book is the life of St Benedict, and it is from Gregory alone that we know the story of St Scholastica and her last evening with her brother. His homilies on the Gospels were preached at Mass to the people of Rome, and several of them are still read in the Breviary.

Butler calls him the fourth Doctor of the Latin Church, with St Ambrose, St Augustine and St Jerome: less an original theologian than a preacher and moralist who made St Augustine's teaching accessible to the whole Middle Ages.

What did St Gregory change in the Mass?

The Breviary sums up his liturgical work: at a synod held at St Peter's he ordained that the Kyrie eleison should be said nine times at Mass, that the Alleluia should be said outside the time from Septuagesima to Easter, and that the words Diesque nostros in tua pace disponas ("and dispose our days in Thy peace") should be added to the Canon, where they still stand in the Hanc igitur. He also enlarged the litanies, the stational churches and the Office, and wished the first four general councils to be honoured like the four Gospels. Every priest who says the traditional Mass says his words every day.

Gregorian chant

The chant of the Roman Church bears his name, and our page on Gregorian chant explains why the Church holds it as the supreme model of sacred music. But Butler is careful: the compilation of the Antiphonary, the reform of church music, the founding of the Roman schola cantorum and several hymns have all been credited to him, and every one of these claims has been contested. What is certain is that he had a lasting influence on the Roman liturgy; how much of the chant he himself ordered, no one can now say with confidence.

The Gregorian Masses

The custom of the "Gregorian Masses", or "Gregorian trental", thirty Masses offered on thirty consecutive days for one of the faithful departed, is traced to a story Gregory tells of his own monastery. A monk named Justus was found on his deathbed to have hidden three gold pieces, against his vow of poverty. Gregory, then abbot, had him die without the comfort of his brethren and be buried apart; but since he had died penitent, he ordered Mass to be offered for him for thirty days.

At the end of the thirty days, Gregory relates, the dead monk appeared to his brother Copiosus and told him that he had been in torments and was now released. The custom is a work of charity for the holy souls, which the doctrine of Purgatory explains; it is not a formula that binds God, and no one should present it as such.

How did St Gregory the Great die?

He reigned thirteen years and crowded into them the work of a lifetime. His deacon Peter said he never rested. He suffered from chronic gastritis and gout and was reduced almost to a skeleton, yet he dictated letters to the end; almost his last act, Butler says, was to send a warm winter cloak to a poor bishop who suffered from the cold.

He died in Rome on 12 March 604, "in the thirteenth year, sixth month and tenth day of his pontificate", as the Breviary counts it, and was buried in St Peter's. "After having conformed all his actions to his doctrines," says his epitaph, "the great consul of God went to enjoy eternal triumphs." He lived long before the formal process of canonization existed; his cult is ancient, and the Breviary notes that even the Greeks keep his feast on 12 March.

Why is he called "the Great"?

Few popes have received the title Magnus. Butler gives the reason: Gregory saved Rome from famine and from the Lombards when no one else would, converted the English, gave the clergy of the West the ideal of the pastor, shaped the Roman liturgy, and, in Butler's words, did perhaps his chief work in strengthening the position of the Roman see. Even the Anglican historian Milman called him "the real father" of the medieval papacy.

The prayer of St Gregory the Great (Missal of 1962)

His Mass is from the Common of Supreme Pontiffs, Si diligis me, with the Epistle of St Peter, "Feed the flock of God which is among you" (1 Peter v. 2), and the Gospel of the keys (St Matthew xvi. 13-19): "Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church." The three prayers are proper to him.

Collect, 12 March

Deus, qui ánimæ fámuli tui Gregórii ætérnæ beatitúdinis prǽmia contulísti: concéde propítius; ut, qui peccatórum nostrórum póndere prémimur, ejus apud te précibus sublevémur. Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. R. Amen.

O God, who didst bestow on the soul of Thy servant Gregory the rewards of everlasting blessedness: mercifully grant that we, who are weighed down by the burden of our sins, may be lifted up by his prayers before Thee. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. R. Amen.

Secret

Annue nobis, quǽsumus, Dómine: ut intercessióne beáti Gregórii hæc nobis prosit oblátio, quam immolándo totíus mundi tribuísti relaxári delícta. Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. R. Amen.

Grant us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, that through the intercession of blessed Gregory this oblation may profit us, by the offering of which Thou hast granted the sins of the whole world to be loosed. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. R. Amen.

Postcommunion

Deus, qui beátum Gregórium Pontíficem Sanctórum tuórum méritis coæquásti: concéde propítius; ut, qui commemoratiónis ejus festa percólimus, vitæ quoque imitémur exémpla. Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. R. Amen.

O God, who didst make blessed Gregory, the Pontiff, equal in merit to Thy Saints: mercifully grant that we who keep the festival of his commemoration may also imitate the example of his life. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. R. Amen.

The Collect is the simplest prayer to St Gregory for any day of the year, and it suits Lent, when his feast falls: that sinners weighed down by their sins may be lifted up by his prayers. Those who wish to make a novena may pray it on the nine days before 12 March. The Iter Fidei app also carries a novena to St Gregory the Great. He is invoked by name, among the holy bishops and confessors, in the Litany of the Saints.

When is the feast day of St Gregory the Great?

In the calendar of 1962 the feast of St Gregory falls on 12 March, the day of his death, as a feast of the third class, in white vestments. The Breviary notes that the Greeks too honour him on that day. Because 12 March always falls in Lent, and under the rubrics of 1960 a Lenten weekday outranks a feast of the third class, St Gregory is in practice kept by a commemoration: the Mass and Office are of the Lenten day, and his Collect is added to the prayer of the day.

When 12 March falls on a Sunday of Lent, a day of the first class, he is not commemorated at all that year. You will find him in our traditional Catholic calendar of 1962 and among the saints of the year in our guide to the Catholic saints.

The calendar of 1969 moved his feast out of Lent to 3 September, the anniversary of his consecration as pope in 590.

What is St Gregory the Great the patron saint of?

The Church honours him above all as a Doctor and, with Bede, as the Apostle of the English. Popular devotion, because of the chant that bears his name, takes him as the patron of musicians, and also of teachers; these are customs of piety, and we know of no act of the Holy See that grants them.

Quotes of St Gregory the Great

On preachers, in a homily on the Gospels that older editions of the Breviary read on his feast: "We are not the salt of the earth if we do not season the hearts of those who hear us... We truly preach what is right to others when we show what we say by our deeds and example."

On the ruin of Rome, writing about 593: "We see what has become of her who once appeared the mistress of the world... Ruins upon ruins everywhere! Where is the senate? Where are the people?"

And the title he chose for himself, which sums up his whole pontificate: Servus servorum Dei, servant of the servants of God.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Pope St Gregory the Great?

A Roman patrician and prefect of the city who became a monk, then pope from 590 to 604. He sent the mission that converted England, wrote the Pastoral Rule and the Dialogues, shaped the Roman liturgy, and is one of the four great Doctors of the Latin Church.

When did St Gregory the Great live?

He was born in Rome about 540 and died there on 12 March 604. He was pope from 3 September 590 until his death.

What miracles did St Gregory the Great perform?

The Breviary, which the Church read on his feast, says he worked many miracles, and tells that he received an Angel and the Lord of the Angels as pilgrims at his table, and that his deacon Peter often saw the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove at his head while he dictated. These are pious traditions; the end of the plague of 590 after his procession is attested by contemporaries.

When was St Gregory the Great canonized?

Never by a formal process, which did not yet exist in his day. His cult is ancient: the Breviary notes that the Greeks too keep his feast on 12 March, the day of his death.

What color signifies St Gregory the Great?

White, the colour of the vestments of his feast, as of all confessors. In Lent, when he is only commemorated, the vestments are the violet of the Lenten day.

Where is St Gregory the Great buried?

In the basilica of St Peter in Rome.

Did St Gregory the Great write Gregorian chant?

The chant bears his name, but as Butler says, his personal part in it has been contested; that he had a deep influence on the Roman liturgy is certain.

The Iter Fidei app carries the Roman Missal of 1962, the Breviary, a novena to St Gregory the Great and the traditional calendar with every feast and commemoration, in Latin and English. Join early access here.

Sources. Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, 12 March (St Gregory the Great, Pope, Doctor of the Church). Roman Breviary, 12 March, historical lessons. Roman Missal (1962), Proper of Saints, 12 March, and Common of Supreme Pontiffs. Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims version, 1 Peter v. 2; St Matthew xvi. 18.