MAY 25TH, PENTECOST MONDAY
(a.k.a. Monday of Whitsuntide)
Month in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
ST. GREGORY VII.
GREGORY VII., by baptismal name Hildebrand, was born in Tuscany, about the year 1013. He was educated in Rome. From thence he went to France, and became a monk at a monastery that was a leader in the reform of the Church, Cluny. Afterwards he returned to Rome, and for many years filled high trusts of the Holy See. Three great evils then afflicted the Church: simony, priests living in concubinage, and the custom of receiving investiture in ecclesiastical office from lay hands. Against these three corruptions Gregory never ceased to contend. As Legate of Pope Victor II. he held a Synod at Lyons where simony was condemned. He was elected Pope in 1073, and at once called upon the pastors of the Catholic world to lay down their lives rather than betray the laws of God to the will of princes. Rome was in rebellion through the ambition of the Cenci family. Gregory excommunicated them. They laid hands on him at Christmas during the midnight Mass, wounded him, and cast him into prison. The following day he was rescued by the people of Rome themselves. Next arose his conflict with Henry IV., Holy Roman Emperor, in Germany. This monarch, after openly relapsing into simony, pretended to depose the Pope. Gregory instead excommunicated the emperor. His subjects turned against him, and at last he hasld to seek absolution from Gregory by kneeling in the snow at Canossa. But Henry did not persevere. He set up an antipope, and besieged Gregory in the castle of the Holy Angel (Sant'Angelo). The aged pontiff was obliged to flee, and on May 25, 1085, about the seventy-second year of his life and the twelfth year of his pontificate, Gregory entered into his eternal rest. His last words were full of a divine wisdom and patience. As he was dying, he said, “'I have loved justice and hated iniquity' [Ps. 44:8], therefore I die in exile.” His faithful attendant answered, “Vicar of Christ, an exile thou canst never be, for to thee God has given the Gentiles for an inheritance, and the uttermost ends of the earth for thy possession.”
Reflection.-- Eight hundred years are passed since St. Gregory died, and we see the same conflict renewed before our eyes. Let us learn from him to suffer any persecution from the world or the state, rather than betray the rights of the Holy Church.