Tuesday, 9/3/13
Today we honor Pope St. Gregory the
Great, who lived from 540 to 604. A well educated noble, at thirty he was named prefect of Rome,
but at thirty-five, with his father leaving him their estate, Gregory turned it
into a monastery, to which he retired in search for intimacy with God.
Five years later, in 590, at the
death of Pope Pelagius II, Gregory was
acclaimed pope by the whole populace of Rome. Two things stood out in his
reign. One was his calling up a Monte Casino monk, changing his name to
Augustine, and sending him to England as the first Archbishop of Canterbury. (As
a boy, Gregory had seen English slaves in Rome’s market, and he had always
wanted to do something for those people.)
A second noteworthy move had him
composing what was called the Roman Canon. Let me explain what was involved in
that.
Our Eucharistic Prayers all grew
out of the grace or blessing offered
by Jesus at the Last Supper (when he said. “Do this in memory of me.”) In formal suppers that blessing always had the same three parts. The host began by
recalling God’s favors. Next, he called down God’s Spirit to unite and empower
the diners. Thirdly, he asked them to join him as part of the “pleasing gift,” (In
Greek, the eu-charis).
The host
offering that blessing always had to include those same three parts, and that was carried
over with priests using the blessing as a Eucharistic prayer. An additional
requirement for the host, and later for the priest, was that he make up his own
words each time, not using a set formula.
Now, Gregory was
one of the last brilliant writers in Latin, with 800 perfect letters of his
coming down to us. However, with the barbarian invasions closing most schools,
Gregory had very few priests who were capable of making up suitable Eucharistic
Prayers for Mass. So, he had to change the rule that had priests making up
their own Mass prayers.
For a standard
Eucharistic Prayer to be used by all priests, Gregory composed what came to be
called the Roman Canon or the Gregorian Mass. With very few changes, it was the
Latin Mass prayer I used when I was ordained sixty-one years ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment