Pope Saint Gregory the Great - September 3

Pope Saint Gregory the Great

September 3

Monk, Pope, Doctor of the Church

“…and forgive us our debts,

as we forgive our debtors;…”

Today we celebrate the feast day of Pope Saint Gregory the Great, born in Rome about 540 to a religious and prominent family. He received the best in liberal education while remaining strong in moral character, due largely to his deeply pious family.

By the age of 30 he had attained the highest office in Rome, the urban prefect, something similar to a mayor. Around this time, his father died, making him one of the richest men in Rome. Moved to monastic life, Saint Gregory gave the properties he had inherited from his father to found seven monasteries. He entered one and gave up his former life of a judge and prefect to pray and do humble service for others.

Monastic life was short lived as St. Gregory was asked to serve as a deacon under Pope Benedict I (575-579) and under Pope Pelagius II (579-590) the pope’s representative at the court of the Roman Emperor in Constantinople. In 586 St. Gregory happily returned to Rome and monastic life as the abbot of the monastery he had founded.

The plague took the life of Pope Pelagius II in 590 and St. Gregory was elected his successor. In the 14 years St. Gregory served as the successor of St. Peter, he wrote more than 800 letters that were collected into 14 volumes (one for each year of his pontificate). In his writings he coined the phrase, “Servant of the Servants of God,” which since the ninth century the Popes have reserved for themselves. St. Gregory made contributions to the development of the Roman liturgy as well as church music, liturgical chant and the formation of singers for the glory of God.






Gregorian chant is named after St. Gregory who is “assigned the entire groundwork of our liturgy in both Mass and Office. This refers not to the composition, but the arrangement of the parts. Very likely St. Gregory composed eight of the hymns used in the Divine Office from his day until the post-Vatican II changes. (Rengers, Christopher O.F.M., The 33 Doctors of the Church, page 195)

St. Gregory died in 604, he is the patron Saint of musicians and singers.

Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo
de Silos  - Gregorian Chant Paster Noster (Our Father)

“Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as it heaven.

Give us today our daily bread;
and forgive us our debts,

as we forgive our debtors;

and do not subject us to the final test,

but deliver us from the evil one.” (Matthew 6:9-13)

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Pope St. Gregory the Great - Raffaello Sanzio
Pope St. Gregory the Great - Francisco de Zurbaran

The Martyrdom of Saint John the Baptist - August 29

The Martyrdom of Saint John the Baptist

August 29

Saint John the Baptist bore witness to the Truth without compromise throughout his entire life. While still in his mother’s womb, he leaped for joy upon encountering Jesus in the womb of Mary. (Luke 1:41) As a young man, Saint John was called to “prepare the way of the Lord,” (Matthew 3:4) then identified Jesus as the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) Finally Saint John was called to the “extraordinary witness few men and women are called to, Christian martyrdom”.

In the 13th century, Benozzo Gozzoli an Italian artist, received a commission for an altarpiece from the Confraternity of the Purification of the Virgin. His instructions, create a center altarpiece of the Virgin and Child surrounded by Angels and Saints. Then create predella panels, individual strips to line the bottom of the center panel, illustrating the lives of each of the Saints surrounding the Virgin and Child.

The Saints in Gozzoli’s center altarpiece are to the left standing Saint John the Baptist, Saint Zenobius and Saint Jerome kneeling. To the right stand Saint Peter and Saint Dominic with Saint Francis kneeling. The predella created for Saint John the Baptist would depict simultaneously three moments of his final hours as recounted in the Gospel of Matthew 14:3-11.

In this Gospel, Herod had arrested John, and put him in prison because John had told Herod it was not lawful for him to marry his brother's wife Herodiaus. As John sat in prison Herod threw a party where the daughter of Herodiaus danced for the guests. Taking great pleasure in the dance, Herod promised to give the girl whatever she asked for. “Prompted by her mother, she said, ‘Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.’” (Matthew 14:8)

In my August 2011 issue of Magnificat, Jem Sullivan describes Gozzoli’s predella, The Feast of Herod and the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist.

“On the left side of the panel, the very moment of John the Baptist’s martyrdom is framed within a round arched doorway. In contrast to the sensuality of Herod’s feast, we see the serene and innocent saint kneeling with his hands folded in prayer before his executioner. He is about to pay the ultimate price of his witness to Christ as he lowers his haloed head  minutes in advance of the beheading sword. The visual narrative comes full circle in the two figures placed in the background of the composition. The young girl now kneels before her mother with a platter upon which lies the severed head of the martyred saint…..Both in life and in death this Gospel saint witnesses to the power of courage, grace, and daily conversion of life…Only a few men and women are called to the extraordinary witness of Christian martyrdom in every age of the Church. But we are all called, by virtue of baptism, to ongoing conversion of life, perseverance in prayer, and selfless witness to the Gospel in our homes, places of work, neighborhoods, and communities of faith.”

Saint John the Baptist Pray for Us

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Art
The Virgin and Child Enthroned among Angels and Saints - Benozzo Gozzoli (1461-1462)
The Feast of Herod and the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist - Benozzo Gozzoli

Saint Augustine - August 28

Saint Augustine

August 28

(354-430)

Bishop and Doctor of the Church

“Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
(Saint Augustine, Confessions)

Yesterday we celebrated the feast day of Saint Monica, today is the feast day of her son, Saint Augustine.  His life is best studied and understood by reading The Confessions.  The following are the opening lines from some of the chapters of this book, which is his autobiography. His confessions and the Grace of God touch my soul as I am reminded of my ongoing journey from darkness (attachment to sin) into the light (attachment to Truth and trust in God).      

Book 1
Infancy to Age Fifteen

“You are great, O Lord, and greatly to be praised. Great is your power, and your wisdom is infinite….You awake us to delight in your praise; for you made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

Book 2

Object of These Confessions

“I will now call to mind my past foulness and the carnal corruptions of my soul, not because I love them, but that I may love you. O my God. For love of your love I do it, reviewing my most wicked ways in the very bitterness of my memory, so that you may grow sweeter to me…gathering me again from my dissipation in which I was torn to shreds while I was alienated from you, the one Good. I wasted myself among a multiplicity of things.”

Book 3

From Age Sixteen to Eighteen

“I came to Carthage, where a cauldron of unholy loves bubbled up all around me. I did not yet love, but I loved to love…So I polluted the waters of friendship with my unclean appetite…foul and dishonorable as I was, I wanted, through my great vanity, to be elegant and courtly.”

Book 4

From Age Eighteen to Twenty-seven

“For a period of nine years,…I lived seduced and seducing, deceived and deceiving, in various forms of unholy desires….On the one hand I was striving after the emptiness of popular praise…On the other hand, I desired to be cleansed of these defilements…I followed these things and practiced them with my friends who were deceived by me and with me.”

“Let the arrogant mock me,…O my God…Bear with me, and give me grace, I pray, to go over the wanderings of former years, and to offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving. For without you, what am I to myself, but a guide to my own downfall?...In my need and helplessness I will confess to you.”

Book 5

At Age Twenty-eight

“Accept the sacrifice of my confessions by the means of my tongue, which you have formed and have prompted to confess to your name....For he who confesses to you does not inform you what takes place within him, since a closed heart does not shut out your eye…Nothing can hide from your heart.”

Book 6

At Age Twenty-nine

“I sought you outside myself and did not find the God of my heart. I had come into the depths of the sea, and distrusted and despaired of ever discovering the truth. By this time my mother had come to me, strengthened by her piety, following me over sea and land, and trusting you through all danger…She found me in deadly trouble through my despair of ever finding the truth.”

Book 7

At Age Thirty

“My evil and abominable youth was now dead, and I was passing into early manhood…But you, Lord, abide forever. Yet you are not angry with us forever, because you have pity on our dust and ashes. It was pleasing in your sight to reform my deformities, and you disturbed me by inward goads to make me dissatisfied until you were revealed to my inward sight. Thus, by the secret hand you were revealed to my inward sight.”

Book 8

At Age Thirty-one

“O my God, let me remember and confess with gratitude to your mercies bestowed on me. Let my bones be steeped in your love...You have broken my bonds; I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving. I shall declare how you have broken them; and all who worship you when they hear these things, shall say, Bless be the Lord in heaven and earth; great and wonderful is his name.”

Book 9

At Age Thirty-two

“O Lord, I am your servant; I am your servant and the son of your handmaid. You have loosed my bonds. I will offer to you the sacrifice of praise. Let my heart and my tongue praise you; yes, let all my bones say, “Lord, who is like you?” Let them speak like this, and answering, say to my soul, “I am your salvation.”

Book 10

The Examined Life

“What is there in me that could be hidden from you, O Lord to whose eyes the depths of man’s conscience is bare, even though I did not confess it? I might hide you from myself, but not myself from you. But now my groaning bear witness that I am displeased with myself and that you shine brightly and are pleasing, beloved and desired. I am ashamed of myself and renounce myself, and choose you, for I can neither please you nor myself except in you. Therefore I am open to you, Lord, with all that I am, and whatever benefit may come from my confession to you.”

“I call upon you, O my God, my Mercy,
who made me and who did not forget me, thought I forgot you...
Do not forsake me now as I call on you,
who anticipated me before I called,
and urged me with many kinds of repeated calls.
That I should hear you from afar, be converted,
and call upon you who called me.”
(Augustine, The Confessions, Book 13, From Inquiry to Praise)

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Art
Saint Augustine - Philippe de Champaigne
Augustine Confessions - Manuscript on Vellum
Saint Augustine Departing for Milan - Benozzo Gozzoli
Saint Augustine & Saint Monica - Ary Scheffer
Saint Augustine - Sandro Botticelli