They buried him beside Scholastica. Two of his monks, whom he had sent forth on a mission, were very far away from Monte Cassino when they saw, in the dead of night, a vast number of the stars of heaven run together to form a great bridge of light towards the east. A voice spoke to them, saying, “By this road, Benedict, the beloved of God, has ascended to heaven.”
CHAPTER III ST. GREGORY THE GREAT
Three years before St. Benedict and his sister Scholastica passed away, there was born, in a palace on the Cœlian Hill, a child who was christened Gregory, a name which signified “Vigilant.” His lineage was exceedingly illustrious, his parents belonging to the great old Gens Anicia, a family of nobles which had been respected and honoured ever since the days of the Republic, and in which, to use the words of a chronicler of Gregory’s time, “the men seemed all to have been born Consuls, and the women Saints.”
Gregory’s mother was St. Silvia, and I have seen the garden, on the quiet Cœlian Hill, where as a child he ran about at her side, asking a thousand questions, as clever children will, while she tended her flowers and gathered healing herbs—the “basilica” and “Madrecara” and “erba della Madonna” still dear to Roman apothecaries, to make into medicines for the sick poor who thronged her charitable doors. Mothers see a long way, and while Gregory’s father was planning a great career in the world for his only son, Silvia was praying that God would keep him pure, and make him great in His sight. And her prayers prevailed, as mothers’ prayers generally do, and though she had to wait a little, she lived to see their fulfilment.
As the boy grew up he threw himself heart and soul into his father’s plans; he studied hard, and his naturally brilliant gifts brought him much distinction. He rejoiced in all the pleasant things that birth and wealth had bestowed on him—good looks, popularity, rich garments, and sparkling jewels—and no doubt was immensely pleased and flattered when, being still quite young, he was made Proctor of Rome. That charge, however, was a grave one at the time, as the Lombards, the most cruel and brutal of all the savage tribes that had threatened the eternal city, chose the period of Gregory’s proctorship to descend upon her and make her feel the weight of their heavy hand. There were religious troubles too, and Gregory, who, through all his busy official life in the world, was an ardent Christian, was deeply exercised and distressed by them. But the world was only to claim him for a little while, in his early manhood. Then he was withdrawn from it to be prepared, through many long years of prayer and penance and study, to step forth towards the end of his life as its rescuer and ruler. Little by little the inner call came, faint at first, sometimes resisted, but ever stronger, till Gregory understood and obeyed.
His heart had gone out at once to the Benedictine monks, when, on the destruction of Monte Cassino by the Lombards, they had sought refuge in Rome. Some of them became his most intimate friends, and their encouragement smoothed his path from the world to the cloister. From the moment when he recognized and embraced his vocation, all hesitation left him. He sold all his goods, distributed the larger part to the poor, and, as if to atone for what the Lombards had destroyed, built and endowed six new monasteries, placing twelve Benedictines in each, in Sicily. That done, he converted his home on the Cœlian into a seventh, where he gathered another community about him, of the same learned Order. His father was dead, and his mother, on becoming a widow, had already built a convent close by, where she had taken the veil herself.
Gregory now devoted himself to three things, prayer, study, and charity. For his own use—he was quickly elected Abbot of the monastery—he reserved a small cell, where he could enjoy the solitude he now so greatly desired, but—a delightfully human touch!—he could not get on without his favourite cat, and one can see him in imagination, pausing from his writing to smooth her velvety head when she sprang upon the table and rubbed it against his cheek! I had a little cat once who would sit motionless on a chair beside me all night while I was writing, but the instant I laid down the pen she was on my lap or my shoulder, talking in her own way, most intelligently and cheeringly; so I was mightily pleased when I read about St. Gregory’s cat!
The Benedictine Rule provided for all hospitality to strangers and the poor, but at the same time directed that the monks themselves were not to be disturbed from prayer and study. St. Gregory, however, seems to have received all who wished to see him, perhaps as an exercise of patience. Now there was a poor shipwrecked sailor who seemed inclined to abuse the privilege. He came again and again, and was never turned away, but on the occasion of what proved to be his last visit Gregory had not a single thing left to give him. He was looking round his rough cell in perplexity, when a messenger appeared bringing the silver basin full of porridge which was the only food he allowed himself, and which his mother sent him every day. Here was what was needed! The next moment the needy sailor man was walking away with the hot porridge and the silver porringer. What St. Silvia said when she heard of the incident has not been recorded—but Gregory never gave the matter another thought until one day, long after, when the importunate sailor appeared to him in his true character, that of an angel of light, and told him that God had taken note of his charity, and—an alarming prophecy for the Saint—that he would be elected Pope and do great things for the Church.
All he asked was to be left quiet in his monastery, where he was putting his whole heart into living the life of a model monk. In his ardour against himself, he carried his penances too far and fasted so rigorously that he came near to dying—an imprudence for which he paid ever after in broken health and in being debarred from fasting at all. He complains pitifully of having to “drag about such a big body with so little strength,” but this was the least of the trials that awaited him.
In the year 577, when Gregory was about thirty-seven years of age, the reigning Pope, Benedict I, sent for him and insisted upon making him one of the Cardinal Deacons to whom was entrusted the jurisdiction of the seven “Regions” into which the city was divided. Gregory protested, but had to take on the charge, and from that time forward he belonged less to himself than to others. He was too necessary and valuable to be spared. The next year, Pope Benedict being dead, his successor, Pelagius II, decided to send Gregory on a very difficult and important mission to the Emperor Tiberius Constantinus at Constantinople, where trouble of all kinds seemed to be brewing. Although Gregory bewails this “thrusting out from port into the storm,” one cannot but feel how the alert fighting spirit in the man leaps to the call. The born leader may persuade himself that he is happiest in the seclusion he thinks good for his soul, but when the call to arms comes, every repressed fibre of his being wakes and cries for action.