Vigils Reading – St Gregory the Great

A reading using our gifts for the service of others,

 from St. Gregory the Great’s treatise Pastoral Care.

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” (Mt 5.14-15). [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” (Jn 21.17). 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” (2 Cor 5.14-15). 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…

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?