St Gregory the Great was born in Rome about the year 540. He came from a noble family and was an administrator in public service in Rome before becoming prefect of the city around 570. After five years he resigned this post and became a monk, setting up monasteries on his own Sicilian estate.<\/p>\n
This life of seclusion did not last long as he was ordained a priest and sent by Pope Pelagius II as his papal legate to Constantinople from 580 to 585. He was elected Pope on 580 and his pontificate lasted until his death in 604.<\/p>\n
As Pope he was a true pastor in his prudent administration and his compassionate care of the poor especially during the period of famine and plague, using the papal treasury to ransom prisoners of the Lombards and assisting the persecuted jewish people. It was Pope Gregory the Great who identified the papacy with the title \u201cservant of the servants of Christ\u201d. He was very concerned about the conversion of Britain and sent 40 of his monks to England to assist in that mission. He wrote many works on the faith and on morals and a commentary on the Book of Job. He reformed the Sacred Liturgy and strengthened the Church\u2019s understanding of Doctrine. He died on the 3rd<\/sup> of September 604.<\/p>\n Quote from Pope Gregory the Great\u2019s homilies on the Gospel<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cPerhaps it is not after all so difficult for a man to part with his possessions, but it is certainly most difficult for him to part with himself. T o renounce what one has is a minor thing but to renounce what one is, that is asking a lot\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" St Gregory the Great was born in Rome about the year 540. He came from a noble family and was an administrator in public service in Rome before becoming prefect of the city around 570. After five years he resigned this post and became a monk, setting up monasteries on his own Sicilian estate. This … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","post","publish","author-ryan-black","post-3354","format-standard","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p85OtW-S6","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3354"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3355,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3354\/revisions\/3355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}