St. Gregory the Great: Feast Day, Patron Saint and Prayer

St. Gregory the Great (about 540–604) was a Roman nobleman and monk who became pope in a time of plague, flood and invasion, and who shaped the Church for a thousand years. He sent St. Augustine of Canterbury to bring the faith to England, wrote books on pastoral care that every bishop studied, called himself “the servant of the servants of God,” and gave his name to Gregorian chant and to the Gregorian Masses for the dead. He is one of the four great Latin Doctors of the Church, and his feast day is September 3. Below are his life, what he is the patron saint of, the prayer of his feast, and a prayer to St. Gregory the Great.

A short prayer to St. Gregory the Great, written for this page:

St. Gregory, faithful shepherd and servant of the servants of God,
you cared for the poor, the sick and the far-off peoples who had never heard of Christ.
Pray for the Pope and all bishops, for teachers and musicians,
and for the souls in purgatory, that they may soon see God’s face. Amen.

Who was St. Gregory the Great?

Prefect of Rome. Gregory was born about 540 into a wealthy Roman family that had already given the Church two popes. He studied law and about 573 became prefect, the highest civil official, of the city of Rome.
Monk. Soon after, he gave his fortune to the poor, founded six monasteries on his family’s lands in Sicily, and turned his own house on the Caelian Hill into the monastery of St. Andrew, where he lived as a monk. He later said these were the happiest years of his life.
Envoy to Constantinople. The pope made him a deacon and sent him as his representative to the imperial court in Constantinople (579–585).
Pope in a time of plague. In 590 floods and plague devastated Rome and Pope Pelagius II died. The clergy and people chose Gregory, who tried to refuse. While he waited for the emperor’s confirmation, he led the people in a great sevenfold procession praying for an end to the plague; legend says St. Michael the Archangel was seen sheathing his sword above the tomb of Hadrian, which has been called Castel Sant’Angelo ever since. He was consecrated on September 3, 590.
Servant of the servants of God. As pope he fed the hungry from the Church’s estates, ransomed captives, negotiated with the Lombard invaders, reformed the clergy and the liturgy, and wrote constantly despite almost continual illness. He died on March 12, 604.

Mission to England

Gregory had long wanted to bring the faith to the Anglo-Saxons. According to a famous story, seeing fair-haired English boys in the slave market in Rome, he said they were “not Angles, but angels.” In 596 he sent St. Augustine and some forty monks from his own monastery to England. They baptized King Ethelbert of Kent, and Augustine became the first archbishop of Canterbury. For this reason the English have long called St. Gregory “the Apostle of the English.”

His writings, Gregorian chant and Gregorian Masses

The Pastoral Rule (Liber regulae pastoralis) taught bishops to be physicians of souls, and was the textbook of bishops for centuries. He describes their calling in words close to St. Peter’s (1 Peter 5:2–4):

Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking care of it, not by constraint, but willingly, according to God: not for filthy lucre’s sake, but voluntarily:
Neither as lording it over the clergy, but being made a pattern of the flock from the heart.
And when the prince of pastors shall appear, you shall receive a never fading crown of glory.

The Dialogues, stories of the holy men of Italy, include the only early life of St. Benedict.
The Moralia on Job and his homilies on the Gospels were read in monasteries throughout the Middle Ages.
Gregorian chant, the Church’s own music, is named after him; he organized the liturgy and music of Rome, though the chant as we know it developed over the following centuries.
Gregorian Masses, thirty Masses offered on thirty consecutive days for one soul in purgatory, come from a story in his Dialogues about a monk named Justus. See Gregorian Masses.

What is St. Gregory the Great the patron saint of?

St. Gregory the Great is the patron saint of:

Musicians and singers, especially church choirs
Teachers, scholars and students
Popes and the papacy
England, whose conversion he began
People suffering from gout and from plague, since he suffered from gout for years and prayed for Rome in the plague

Feast day

The feast of St. Gregory the Great is September 3, the anniversary of his consecration as pope; it is a memorial in the universal calendar. Before 1969 his feast was kept on March 12, the day of his death, and the 1916 missal gives this prayer for it:

O God, who hast bestowed on the soul of thy servant Gregory the reward of eternal blessedness, mercifully grant that we who are oppressed by the burden of our sins, may by his prayers to thee obtain relief. Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God world without end. Amen.

Frequently asked questions

When is the feast day of St. Gregory the Great?

September 3. Before the calendar reform of 1969 it was March 12.

Why is he called “the Great”?

Because of his holiness, his care for the poor, his writings and his reform of the Church in a time of crisis. Only two other popes, St. Leo I and St. Nicholas I, are commonly called “the Great.” See St. Leo the Great.

Did St. Gregory write Gregorian chant?

Not all of it. The chant bears his name because he organized the Church’s liturgy and music, but much of it was composed and arranged after his time.

More saints and prayers

Texts and sources

1 Peter 5:2–4 (Douay-Rheims).
The Mass Every Day of the Year (1916), St. Gregory I (March 12), Collect.
Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), “Pope St. Gregory I (the Great),” by G. R. Hudleston, public domain (Wikisource).