Saint Gregory the Great: On the Pastoral Rule

[Originally written for a class. In light of all the recent scandals among the episcopacy, I thought posting the following would be relevant.]

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“So exalted is the view of the episcopal calling taken by the Regula Pastoralis, that it has been said that it made the bishops who made the modern nations.”[1]

Saint Gregory the Great’s On the Pastoral Rule (Liber Regulae Pastoralis) immediately established itself as a classic of pastoral theology and spirituality.[2] Written in response to a criticism that St. Gregory had attempted to flee from his responsibilities upon election to the papacy,[3] the Pastoral Rule was circulated in Spain, translated into Greek and distributed among the Eastern Churches by order of the Emperor Maurice, and spread throughout Ireland and England by SS. Columban and Augustine.[4] Nor did its influence wane, for by the 9th century, Alfred the Great, desiring to reform the clergy of England, translated the work into Old English and commanded each bishop in his kingdom to read it.[5] In France around the same time, each newly consecrated bishop received a copy of the Canons along with the Pastoral Rule.[6] By the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas relied on it as the principal basis for his exposition on the episcopacy in the Summa Theologiae.[7] Finally, in the 20th century, Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP, commended it as contributing to a proper notion of priestly perfection.[8] The Pastoral Rule not only sets high standards but hands on the practical wisdom of a great contemplative saint who did not shirk from laboring in the world. Its enduring impact on the spirituality of the priest and bishop combined with its sheer abundance of excellent advice in navigating the delicate balance between the contemplative and active lives make the work incontestably important for the seminarian and priest. In reading the work, two points struck me most powerfully: first, the focus on balance that St. Gregory brings in explaining the work of the pastor, and second, the necessity of great sanctity in order for the pastor to conduct an effective apostolate. I will explain these points and their relevance for growth in the spiritual life.

The Pastoral Rule eminently (while not consciously) embodies the Aristotelian-Thomistic notion that virtue lies in the golden mean between excess and defect.[9] St. Gregory makes use of the balance between contrasting elements in order to explain the virtues and knowledge necessary for the pastor. For example, a man may rightfully flee from the office of pastor out of humility, yet if God calls him to this duty, to deny it would reveal prideful obstinacy.[10] The pastor must exercise prudence in keeping silence but be forthright and profitable in speech, avoiding the defect of an excessive silence that would imply approval of the sinful behavior of those deserving correction and, on the other hand, the excess of careless and immoderate rebuke.[11] Similarly, the pastor must balance gentleness and rigor, gently correcting sins of weakness or ignorance, reprimanding more sternly sins of malice, yet without excessive harshness, for “when reproof blazes forth immoderately, the hearts of the sinners fall into dejection and despair.”[12] St. Gregory elaborates on the careful balance required between the contemplative and active aspects of pastoral life. The pastor’s contemplation must be exalted above all others, yet like St. Paul, who made provision for married life to faithful under his care out of concern for the concupiscence of the flesh, he must accommodate himself to the needs of the weak.[13] Like the example of our Lord, Who ascended the mountain to pray to His Father and descended to minister to sinners during the day, so “good rulers, who, though they strive after the highest things by contemplation, should nevertheless by their compassion share in the needs of the weak.”[14] St. Gregory explains beautifully that “charity rises to sublime heights, when in pity it is drawn by the lowly […] and the more kindly it stoops to infirmity, the mightier is its reach to the highest.”[15] Ultimately, St. Gregory establishes that contemplation takes priority since the faithful must receive from the spiritual abundance of the pastor, like water overflowing from an interior cistern,[16] but his contemplation must not be so prolonged that the pastor neglects his responsibilities to his flock.[17]

The other type of balance on which St. Gregory expounds regards the pastor’s knowledge so that he may adapt his manner of teaching to each class of individual, temperament, and character. Here St. Gregory reveals a profound understanding of psychology combined with the most developed prudence and breadth of experience. The saint compares the pastor’s work to the playing of a harp, where each listener is a different string, to which the harpist must apply a different stroke suited to each in order to produce a skillful and harmonious melody.[18] Gregory goes on to elucidate around 40 different classes of people, of various temperaments, characters, virtues, vices, and experiences, and how the preacher is effectively to teach them all. His discussion of encouraging the overly taciturn provides an example of the saint’s penetrating insight into the human heart that depreciates the supposed genius of Freud’s “talking cure”:

Often when the taciturn suffer injustice, they come to feel keener grief from not speaking about what they are suffering. […] Wounds that are closed are the more painful. […] People, therefore, who are more silent than is expedient, should realise [sic] that they but aggravate the vehemence of their grief in withholding speech [….][19]

Clearly, to achieve this remarkable balance and depth requires profound sanctity and docility to the movements of the Holy Ghost as for example when St. Gregory states: “Humility is to be preached to the proud in a way not to increase fear in the timorous, and confidence [to the timorous] as not to encourage the unbridled impetuosity in the proud. […] The highest good is to be so praised, that the good in little things is not discarded.”[20] Gregory’s insistence on striking that balance and reaching that summit of virtue for an effective pastoral ministry brings me to my second point of interest.

One of St. Gregory’s principal points in his Pastoral Rule is the sanctity requisite for the great responsibility of pastoral ministry. As St. Thomas succinctly puts it, in a manner with which St. Gregory would undoubtedly have agreed, the bishop is the perfector of others.[21] The pastor must be holy by reason of the dignity of his office as the life of the shepherd is so far above the life of the sheep.[22] St. Gregory warns, “No one ventures to teach any art unless he has learned it after deep thought,” and that the government of souls is “the art of arts.”[23] The saint compares the pastor to a physician who would be rash to attempt to heal others without having first mastered the art of medicine himself, and further than the physician, in order for the pastor to heal souls, he himself must first be healed of sinfulness and even attachment to sin: “If, then, in [the physician’s] practice ailments still thrive in him, with what presumption does he hasten to heal the afflicted while he carries a sore on his own face?”[24] St. Gregory makes the vivid comparison between the sinful pastor and an untrustworthy mediator sent to intercede for a party: “For we all know full well that when a person is out of favour [sic] and sent to intercede, the mind of the incensed person is moved to greater anger,”[25] so too a pastor stuck in the mire of sin will not only fail to draw down the graces of God for his flock but will also lead to his own ruin and that of those under his care. Pastors who are still beginners in the spiritual life are like fledgling birds attempting “to fly upwards before their wings are fully developed” and therefore “fall down from where they tried to soar.”[26] With many other different analogies, St. Gregory argues that the pastor must teach what he has learned through personal experience more than abstract study,[27] must lead by the example of his own virtuous conduct,[28] must please men by the goodness of his character so as to draw men to a love of truth and holiness,[29] and in short, must

make himself heard rather by deeds than by words, and that by his righteous way of life should imprint footsteps for men to tread in [….] Let [pastors] first rouse themselves up by lofty deeds, and then make others solicitous to live good lives. […] Then, and only then, let them set in order the lives of others by their words.[30]

On the other hand, St. Gregory’s overwhelming emphasis on the pastor’s personal holiness may perhaps confuse some readers: why does St. Gregory not also focus on the pastor’s sacramental ministry? With the Pastoral Rule St. Gregory intends to guide bishops in their pastoral ministry rather than priests in their sacramental ministry, and one should keep in mind that Gregory’s vision of the pastor as spiritual physician and exemplar implies that the effectiveness of the pastor’s ministry corresponds with the degree of his holiness. This difference of focus reveals why he spends so much time focusing on the personal qualifications of the pastor as well as the prudential knowledge needed to guide properly the various classes of individuals under his care. Despite this difference, the necessity of holiness applies also to priests as Fr. Antonio Royo Marin, OP, notes forcefully, for while it is true that the sacramental aspect of priestly ministry possesses an intrinsic efficacy derived ex opere operato,

one cannot entertain the slightest doubt that in all those other activities the efficacy of which depend on the proper dispositions of the instrument, i.e. ex opere operantis (and these are all those activities of the priest except those we referred to in the valid administration of the sacraments), the supernatural efficacy of his apostolate will be in direct and immediate proportion to the degree of sanctity and perfection of the minister of God, and a poor curate in Ars, ignorant and scorned yet aflame with divine love, will convert more sinners and bring more souls to God than all the professors of the Sorbonne in Paris combined.[31]

The importance of both points discussed should be clear for the seminarian and priest. The success of his extra-sacramental ministry hinges on the degree to which he is docile to the Holy Ghost and acts in persona Christi not only in an official manner but also a personal manner, and St. Gregory provides us with an eminently trustworthy guide to develop those virtues specific to pastoral ministry.

St. Gregory’s Pastoral Rule is truly a sobering read. After enumerating the degree of exalted virtues and the vastness of necessary wisdom to pastor souls effectively, the saint closes his work with a chapter on the importance of remaining humble. He writes, “It is necessary that […] the eye of the soul should turn its gaze on its infirmities […] and as [pastors] are not able to overcome the very little [faults], they should not presume to pride themselves on the great things they accomplish.”[32] This book provides us an opportunity to reflect seriously on the maturity and the balance required for priestly ministry as well as the heavy burden of responsibility that accompanies it. It also emphasizes in another manner the fact that God is the author of all good things, that any good we possess is from Him (Jas. 1:17); as St. Paul asks, “What has thou that thou hast not received?” (1 Cor. 4:7). And reminiscent of our Lord’s parable of the talents, St. Gregory reminds us that those who have been given much are expected to help others, for “the gifts which they have received [are] not for their own sakes only, but for the sake of others also.”[33] Our Lord “came forth from the bosom of His Father into our midst, that He might benefit many,” and hence the love of God must overflow into the love of neighbor for God’s sake.[34] May we learn from the example of St. Gregory the Great, who, despite his personal protests to the contrary,[35] preached through the lofty holiness of his life in addition to his words.

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Footnotes:

1. Horace K. Mann, The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, Part 1: 590–657 (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1925), 1:241. On the influence of the Pastoral Rule, see St. Gregory the Great, Pastoral Care, trans. Henry Davis, in Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation, eds. Johannes Quasten and Joseph C. Plumpe, no. 11 (Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1950), 9–12 [hereafter Davis, Pastoral Care, page, book, and chapter].

2. Abbot Snow, St. Gregory the Great: His Work and His Spirit (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, Ltd., 1924), 90–91.

3. Davis, Pastoral Care, 4, translator’s introduction.

4. Ibid., 10.

5. Ibid., 11.

6. Mann, The Lives of the Popes, 242.

7. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, vol. 47: 2a2ae. 183–189: The Pastoral and Religious Lives, ed. Jordan Aumann (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 60–61, footnote a [hereafter ST].

8. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, On the Sanctification of Priests According to the Needs of Our Times, trans. Paul M. Kimball, (Camillus, NY: Dolorosa Press, 2013), ch. 1, art. 3.

9. Cf. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, trans. M. Timothea Doyle (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1989), 1:64–65.

10. Davis, Pastoral Care, 32, I, 6. St. Thomas expands on this argument in ST 2a2ae.185.2, even quoting from the same passage of St. Gregory’s Pastoral Rule.

11. Ibid., 51–55, II, 4.

12. Ibid., 85, II, 10.

13. Ibid., 56–57, II, 5.

14. Ibid., 58.

15. Ibid.

16. Ibid., 175, III, 24. St. Gregory writes, “The preacher drinks the water of his own cistern [.…] To be sure, it is proper that he should drink first, and then give others to drink by his preaching” (ibid.). This image anticipates St. Bernard’s striking comparison between the reservoir and the canal, which forms a perfect summary of St. Gregory’s thought on those seeking too eagerly for the pastoral office: “Today there are many in the Church who act like canals, the reservoirs are far too rare. So urgent is the charity of those through whom the streams of heavenly doctrine flow to us, that they want to pour it forth before they have been filled; they are more ready to speak than to listen, impatient to teach what they have not grasped, and full of presumption to govern others while they know not how to govern themselves” (“Sermon 18” in On the Song of Songs, trans. Kilian Walsh, in Cistercian Fathers Series: Number Four: The Works of Bernard of Clairvaux, ed. M. Basil Pennington [Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1971] 1:134, n. 3).

17. Ibid., 68–75, II, 7. St. Thomas famously perfects this line of argumentation when demonstrating that the mixed life rises above both the contemplative and active, for “just as it is better to illumine than merely to shine, so it is better to give to others the things contemplated than simply to contemplate” (ST 2a2ae.188.6). Interestingly, St. Thomas also argues that this mixed life is more perfect because it more closely resembles the perfection of the episcopal state (ibid.).

18. Ibid., 89–90, III, prologue.

19. Ibid., 130–131, III, 14.

20. Ibid., 227, III, 36.

21. ST 2a2ae.184.7.

22. Davis, Pastoral Care, 45, II, 1.

23. Ibid., 21, I, 1.

24. Ibid., 38, I, 9.

25. Ibid., 39.

26. Ibid., 180, III, 25.

27. Ibid., 23–25, I, 2.

28. Ibid., 48–51, II, 3.

29. Ibid., 77, II, 8.

30. Ibid., 232–233, III, 40.

31. Antonio Royo Marin, Teología de la perfección cristiana (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autore Cristianos, 2015), 806–807, n. 669, 5 (my translation). Cf. also St. John of the Cross who writes, “As for the one who teaches, the profit is usually commensurate with his interior preparedness. […] We frequently see, insofar as it is possible to judge here below, that the better the life of the preacher the more abundant the fruit, no matter how lowly his style, poor his rhetoric, and plain the doctrine” (Ascent of Mount Carmel, trans. K. Kavanaugh and O. Rodriguez, in The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross, eds. K. Kavanaugh and O. Rodriguez [Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1973], 291, III, 45).

32. Davis, Pastoral Care, 237, IV.

33. Ibid., 29–30, I, 5.

34. Ibid., 31.

35. Ibid., 237, IV.