” “”An example to be held up to the pastors of the Church and to civil servants”: yesterday morning at Angelus, the Pope described with these words the figure of Saint Gregory the Great, a Pope and a Doctor of the Church, which is celebrated on September 3rd. His figure is “unusual, I’d say almost unique”, recalled Benedict XVI, as he was “first a Prefect and then a Bishop of Rome”. Acclaimed as Pope at the death of Pelagius II, Gregory “tried in every way to escape that appointment but eventually he had to give up and, after reluctantly leaving the cloister, he devoted himself to the community, aware that he was fulfilling a duty and that he was a simple ‘servant of the servants of God'”. “With prophetic farsightedness added Benedict XVI Gregory sensed that a new civilisation was about to be born of the meeting between the Roman heritage and the so-called ’barbarian’ peoples, driven by the force of cohesion and moral elevation of Christianity. Monasticism turned out to be an asset not just for the Church, but for the entire society”. His best known work, recalled the Pope, was the pastoral Rule: “The life of the shepherd of souls must be a well-balanced combination of contemplation and action, enlivened by love”, went on Benedict, as he highlighted that “the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council took inspiration from this ever-relevant lesson to outline the image of the Shepherd of our time”.
