St. Gregory the Great

Today is the Feast of St. Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome from 590 until his death on this day in the year 604. He is important to me because during his tenure, he saw to it that the then-amorphous body of Latin liturgical plainsong was organized into the structure that survives today in those places where the Proper Chants of the Mass are sung [this is the traditional view (for example, see here); many scholars disagree, arguing that the codification of the Chants happened about a century later.]. Also, he is partly responsible for the Sunday Lectionary and the Collects of the Day. When Charlemagne asked Pope Adrian in the 780's to send him a copy of the Roman service book, what arrived was the Gregorian Sacramentary, which was then used throughout the Holy Roman Empire and beyond. It is said that Gregory "collected the Sacramentary of Gelasius in one book, leaving out much, changing little, adding something." (John the Deacon, 8th c., in his "Life of Gregory;" quoted from Wikipedia s.v. "Sacramentary")

As one of the greatest of the Pontiffs, it is fitting to invoke his prayers as the College of Cardinals sit in conclave to select a successor to Benedict XVI.

I am thankful that Gregory saw fit to send missionaries to the English people. For all its faults (and there were many) the Roman Christianity that spread from Canterbury tied Britain into the larger Christian world.

Here is an English translation of the Gradual, prepared by Bruce E. Ford. It happens that we are singing a number of the Holy Week chants from this book this season. The document is a 415 page PDF file.

Here is a medieval drawing of Gregory with the Holy Spirit singing the chant in his ear as he writes it in a chant book.

And here is a painting of him by Rubens.

St. Gregory left the Church in better shape than he found it. May we seek to do the same.