gregorius (ii)

The call to prayer!

The effort to sanctify the little things!

To sancify our daily labours, to sanctify everything that we do, and to hand it back to God as a gift in humility and in gratitude. And you can see this ongoing transformation in Gregory! And I was imagining the disappointment in his friends, but I can also imagine Gregory's reaction when... he had not been in this monastery for very long, when the Pope who knew him of course asks him to serve as what was known at the time as an 'annunzio', a delegate, an ambassador to Constantinople...

But while he was there, Gregory álso lived the life of a monk! And in that sense too he experienced Byzantine Christianity, Eastern Christianity... and I think that also had a very great influence and impact on him as well. Notably, he did not learn Greek. He kept to his Latin. And in that sense too, he represents the kind of growing gulf between the East and the West. And the separation that began linguistically, then also expanded theologically.

Upon his return in Rome... we know that he immediately resumed monastic life!

After the death of Pope Pelagius... one wanted him as the next Pope... and he even tried to flee the town, because he knew where things were going... and he was brought back, and not forced to yield, but finally yielded to the demand, and he was unanimously chosen by the clergy of Rome, by the people and the Senate of Rome.

And in 590 he became the one thing he did not want to be, and that was Bishop op Rome and Successor of Saint Peter.


~bron~