From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Slothfulness in idle words:   
      
       Very often slothfulness in guarding against idle words proves to   
   be our downfall, for little by little we come to utter harmful ones.   
   At first we enjoy talking about other peoples' affairs; then through   
   detraction we belittle the lives of those we discuss; and finally we   
   break out into open slander. Under this provocation quarrels arise,   
   hatred is kindled, and peace of heart is destroyed.   
       This is why James says: Let everyone be swift to hear, but slow to   
   speak, and why Truth himself warns us that on the Day of Judgment   
   people will have to render an account for every idle word they have   
   spoken.   
      
   ==============   
   September 3rd - St. Gregory I   
   (540? – 604)   
      
   Most human beings are endowed with average gifts. Once in a while we   
   encounter a man or woman clearly outstanding. Pope St. Gregory I, for   
   instance, was one of these first-class personalities.   
      
   Gregory was born around 540 into a patrician Roman family that had   
   already given two popes to the Church. His family trained him for   
   civil service. Roman civil service had always been a distinguished   
   career. Able civil servants were all the more necessary in the sixth   
   century when Italy was being overrun by barbarian invaders. Around   
   570, when aged thirty, he was named prefect (governor) of Rome, with   
   the duty of defending, financing, provisioning and policing the   
   Eternal City. He proved more than equal to the task.   
      
   After his father’s death in 575, however, as the result of a religious   
   “conversion,” Gregory decided to become a monk. For himself and a   
   group of like-minded men, he turned his family home into a monastery,   
   and set out on a program of prayer and study. But he was too able a   
   man for the popes to leave in the cloister. Four years later he was   
   put in charge of one of Rome’s regional deaconries, and ordained a   
   deacon. Before long he was sent on a mission to the Roman Emperor in   
   Constantinople as an aposcrisiarius (papal ambassador). If he had to   
   leave the monastery, he at least took along the monastic life. A   
   number of his monks went with him, and they set up a temporary   
   monastic house in Constantinople. During the mission he pleaded with   
   the Emperor to send troops to protect Italy from invaders, but the   
   short-sighted emperor was not persuaded.   
      
   Returning to Rome in 586, Deacon Gregory became an advisor to Pope   
   Pelagius II. In 589 Rome was stricken by a terrible epidemic, of which   
   the Pope himself was one of the victims. Gregory was chosen by   
   acclamation to succeed him as bishop of Rome. While waiting patiently   
   for the Emperor’s permission for his consecration, the pope-elect   
   organized a massive penitential procession in Rome to beg divine   
   intervention. Tradition says that when St. Michael the Archangel   
   appeared, sheathing his sword, on the top of the Mausoleum of Hadrian,   
   the plague ceased.   
      
   The new pope truly regretted being permanently called out of the   
   cloister, but he accepted the call as a divine assignment and began   
   his energetic rule.   
      
   First, he gradually became the real ruler of most of Italy. When   
   Emperor Maurice refused to send protective troops, Italy turned more   
   and more to the popes for leadership. Gregory prevented the Lombards   
   from invading Rome, not by arms but by paying them a large sum and   
   promising them an annual tribute thereafter. Not the noblest method   
   perhaps, but one that prevented further war. Popes after him   
   eventually became rulers of the “Papal States.”   
      
   Second, he acknowledged the administrative division of Christianity   
   into five patriarchates: Constantinople, occupying the post of honor   
   over the eastern patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem;   
   and Rome, ruling the West. But he also maintained the Petrine   
   authority of the bishops of Rome by insisting that appeals could be   
   made from the Patriarch of Constantinople to that of Rome. Gregory was   
   no swaggerer as pope, however. He signed himself “Servant of the   
   Servants of God.”   
      
   As Patriarch of the West, he attended carefully to his duties in   
   Italy, Africa, Gaul (France), and Spain. It was he, too, who sent a   
   mission to England to preach the gospel to the pagan Anglo-Saxons,   
   after the British Christians refused to lift even a finger to save the   
   souls of these invaders.   
      
   As a monk and lover of scripture, Gregory did much to regularize the   
   Latin Liturgy. For instance, the Roman Canon of the Mass (Eucharistic   
   Prayer I) clearly derives from the Sacramentary that he approved.   
   “Gregorian Chant” more likely developed in the ninth century, but he   
   also contributed to that development.   
      
   The turbulence of his era demanded clear and forthright doctrinal   
   statements. Gregory as a writer spoke to the man-in-the-street. His   
   Moralia, based on the Book of Job, was a popular treatise on moral   
   theology; his Pastoral Care, on the duties of bishops and priests; his   
   Dialogues, on holiness, death and the afterlife. The homilies he   
   delivered are more profound. The 800 remaining letters he wrote show   
   the man himself, confessedly imperfect yet wonderfully wise. This   
   literary output caused him to be early ranked with SS. Ambrose,   
   Augustine, and Jerome, as one of the four pioneer “Doctors of the   
   Western Church.” Learning and good deeds further merited for him the   
   title of “Great” that posterity has wisely conferred on him.   
      
   One admonition, by the way, that Pope Gregory earnestly addressed to   
   Christians of his day and to us as well, is this: Don’t forget to have   
   masses offered for the poor souls in purgatory.   
      
   Do our dear ones deserve to be left stranded halfway to heaven?   
   –Father Robert   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   “All who undertake to teach must be endowed with deep love, the   
   greatest of patience and, most of all, profound humility. They must   
   perform their work with earnest zeal. Then, through their humble   
   prayers, the Lord will find them worthy to become fellow workers with   
   Him in the cause of truth.”…St Joseph Calasanz   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   10 Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion; for lo, I come and I will   
   dwell in the midst of you, says the Lord. 11 And many nations shall   
   join themselves to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people; and I   
   will dwell in the midst of you, and you shall know that the Lord of   
   hosts has sent me to you. 12 And the Lord will inherit Judah as his   
   portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem.” 13 Be   
   silent, all flesh, before the Lord; for he has roused himself from his   
   holy dwelling.  [Zechariah 2:10-14]  RSVCE   
      
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)