Vigils Reading – St Gregory the Great

TELL THE BRETHREN

From the treatise “Pastoral Care” by St Gregory the Great

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There are those who are gifted with virtues in a high degree and who are

exalted by great endowments for the training of others; men who are unspotted

in their zeal for chastity, strong in the vigor of their abstinence, replete with

feasts of knowledge, humble in their long-suffering patience, erect in the

fortitude of authority, gentle in the grace of loving-kindness, strict and

unbending in justice. Such, indeed in declining to undertake supreme rule when

invited to do so, deprive themselves, for the most part, of the gifts which they

have received not for their own sakes only, but for the sake of others also.

When these regard their own personal advantage, not that of others, they

lose such advantages in wishing to retain them for themselves, Hence it was that

the Truth said to the disciples: “A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid,

neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick,

that it may shine to all that are in the house”.

[For this reason] He said to Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

And when Simon replied at once that he loved Him, he was told: “If you love

me, feed my sheep”. If, then, the care of feeding is a testimony of love, he who,

abounding in virtues, refuses to feed the flock of God, is convicted of having no

love for the Supreme Shepherd. [It is because of this that] Paul says: “If Christ

died for all, then all were dead. And if He died for all, it remains that they also

who live, may not now live only for themselves, but for Him who died for them

and rose again”. Thus, Moses says that the surviving brother must take the wife

of his brother who died without children, and raise up children for his brother’s

name; and should he refuse to take her, she shall spit in his face…9

Now, the deceased brother is [the Lord] who, appearing after the glory of

the Resurrection, said: “Go, tell my brethren;” for He died, as it were, without

sons, because He had not yet filled up the number of the elect. The surviving

brother is ordered to take the wife, because it is fitting that the care of Holy

[Mother] Church should be assigned to him who is best fitted to rule it well. If he

proves unwilling, the woman spits in his face, because, whosoever does not care

to assist others by the favors which he has received, is reprobated by Holy

Church also for the good he has, and as it were, she casts spittle in his face….

So, there are those who, endowed, as we have said, with great gifts, in

their eagerness for the pursuit of contemplation only, decline to be of service to

the neighbor by preaching; they love to withdraw in quietude and desire to be

alone for meditation. Now, if they are judged strictly on their conduct, they are

certainly guilty in proportion to the public service which they were able to

afford. Indeed, what disposition of mind is revealed in him, who could perform

conspicuous public benefit on coming to his task, but prefers his own privacy to

the benefit of others, seeing that the Only-Begotten of the Supreme Father came

forth from the bosom of His Father into our midst, that He might benefit many?