St Gregory the Great

Gregory the Great is one of the men without whom the early medieval Church is hard to imagine. Gregory first stands out as a Roman nobleman and public official who might have ended as a successful statesman, then as the convert to monastic quiet who turned his family house on the Caelian into a monastery and would gladly have remained there. The world would not let him. Service in Constantinople, close work for the papacy, and then election to the papal office itself drew him steadily outward. When he became pope, Rome was afflicted by famine, plague, administrative collapse, and the continuing threat of the Lombards.

What makes Gregory so impressive is the number of burdens he carries without becoming merely a man of burdens. He feeds the poor, governs estates, negotiates with rulers, reforms clergy, answers pastoral questions, preaches, writes, and still keeps a monk's heart beneath the papal office. His influence also reached far beyond his own day: the Pastoral Rule, the mission of Augustine to England, his care for liturgy and discipline, and the personal tenderness with which he dealt with souls. Gregory feels immense because contemplation did not shrink him from government, and government did not harden him against contemplation.