St Gregory the Great! Pray for Us. Let’s Celebrate Him.



“Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith”. (Hebrew 13: 8)

This text of the Scripture provides a good basis as well as reason for the celebration of the feast of our patron saint, St Gregory the Great. God wants us to remember those who have gone before us in our faith family especially those of them who are have enriched us through their life and teaching.

I know that some Christians find it difficult to understand why we, Catholics, relate with the saints the way we do; venerating them and soliciting their intercessions. The same people who brought people to Jesus and begged him to heal them are no longer qualified to do so because they are dead. So, the difficulty springs largely from the fact that they think of the saints as dead and no longer able to have fellowship with us or assist us.

This is not what Christian faith tells us.   

The Bible teaches us that “if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands” (2 Corinthians 5: 1), and that “The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace”. (Wisdom 3: 1-3). Hence, life is changed but not ended by physical death.

Saints are those whose lives have been transformed through death and brought most closely to Christ in the glory of heaven. Some of them are officially recognized, that is, “canonized”, but many others are not officially recognized. Whether they are canonized or not, the saints are in the same communion with us who are pilgrims in this side of existence.

St Gregory the Great is one of the canonized saints, and by the special grace of God, he is the patron saint of our parish. He was the 64th Bishop of Rome, that is, Pope, from AD 590 to 604. As Pope, he did many things that impacted remarkably on the Church which earned him the designation, “the Great”.

St Gregory the Great laid solid foundations for the way the Church is governed and administered. His teachings and writings on matters of faith and theology, particularly on the Holy Spirit, warranted his inclusion among the doctors of the Church. He promoted the use of music in public worship to the point that sacred music was named after him; Gregorian chants. He was the Pope of the poor; he spent a lot of the resources at his disposal in taking care of the poor. We are glad to have St Gregory as the patron saint of our parish and we give God thanks for all his blessing on us that come through his intercession. This feast is for us a celebration of our fellowship with one another, a recommitment to St Gregory’s legacies of love for sacred worship and the poor, and welcoming of new members to our family in Christ. Happy feast to all and welcome to our new parishioners.

© Fr Bona 2026.