Text from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless stated otherwise.
Saint Gregory I.
“The Great”.
Pope. Doctor Of The Church.
Feast Day 12 March.
Double.
White Vestments.
Saint Jerome and Saint Gregory the Great.
Artist: Antonio Vivarini (1440–1480).
Date: 15th-Century.
Source/Photographer: ART PRINTS ON DEMAND
(Wikimedia Commons)
Born at Rome in 540 A.D., Saint Gregory, the historian of Saint Benedict, transformed his house into a Monastery, where the great Patriarch's Rule was observed.
Becoming, successively, Abbot, Cardinal, and Supreme Pontiff, he was one of the greatest Popes established by God over His Family (Communion).
While he actively propagated The Truth through the barbarian World, he watched over the temporal interests of his Roman people with supreme intelligence and devotion, and has justly been named “Gregory the Great”.
He is, with Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine, and Saint Jerome, one of the four great Latin Doctors of The Church, and the torch of his doctrine, raised on the candlestick (Gospel), shines throughout the World.
Glass Inlay Mosaic — Saints Augustine and Gregory.
“Non Angli sed Angeli si Christiani . . .”
Chapel of Saint Gregory and Saint Augustine,
Westminster Cathedral, London.
Photo: June 2011.
Source: Own work.
Author: User:FA2010
(Wikimedia Commons)
England owes her conversion to him: He sent her a company of Benedictine Monks, under whose guidance he hoped The Angles would become Angels.
To him, chiefly belongs the honour of having collected and published the beautiful and chaste forms of Liturgical Prayer, and those harmonious melodies called for ever after him, “Gregorian Chant”.
The Gregorian Chant expresses most perfectly and piously the thoughts contained in the Liturgical Texts, if what La Bruyère says is observed: “There are things where mediocrity is intolerable, namely poetry, painting and music.”
“The Gregorian Chant”, says Pope Saint Pius X, possesses in the highest degree the qualities proper to The Liturgy, which are especially Holiness and Excellence of Form, whence spontaneously springs another character, namely universality.
Saint Gregory the Great.
The Doctors of The Church.
Dr. Matthew Bunson.
Available on YouTube at
“Consequently, The Gregorian Chant properly belongs to The Roman Church; it is the only Chant she has inherited from The Ancient Fathers, which she has jealously guarded through the ages in her Liturgical Manuscripts, which she directly proposes to The Faithful as her own, and which, in certain parts of The Liturgy, she prescribes exclusively.
“For these reasons, The Gregorian Chant has always been considered the supreme model of Sacred Music. The Traditional Ancient Chant is, therefore, to be made good use of in the functions of The Church, all being well assured that an Ecclesiastical Function loses nothing of its Solemnity when no other music accompanies it.
“And particular care should be taken to re-establish The Gregorian Chant in popular practice, in order that The Faithful may again take a more active part, in the Celebration of Ecclesiastical Offices, as was once the custom” (“Motu proprio”, 22 November 1903. [Cf. “Catholic Liturgy”, by Dom Lefebvre, ch. 17. (London, Sands and Co.)]).
Saint Gregory died on 12 March 604 A.D.
Pope Saint Gregory the Great.
Available on YouTube at
At this Season, Consecrated to Penance, let us ask God, through the Intercession of this Saint, to deliver us from the weight of our sins (Collect).
Mass: Sacerdótes Dei.
Commemoration: Of The Feria.
Creed: Is said.
Last Gospel: Of The Feria.
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