“This little work is the key to Gregory’s life,” says the Catholic Encyclopedia, meaning St. Pope Gregory the Great’s Book of Pastoral Care. “For what he preached, he practiced. . . it remained for centuries the textbook of the Catholic episcopate, so that by its influence the ideal of the great pope has molded the character of the Church, and his spirit has spread into all lands.”
My title above overstates Gregory’s thesis, but only by a little bit. Of the four “books” in this work, Book III is devoted solely to how a bishop is to admonish different classes differently: men from women, poor from rich, sincere from insincere, married from not married (much as you would expect). But also, interestingly, he has chapters on how differently to admonish “those who have had experience of carnal intercourse” from “those who are ignorant of it,” and “those who are overcome by sudden passion,” from “those who are bound in guilt of set purpose.”
I said it was only by a bit that I overstated Gregory’s thesis, because Book III, on how to admonish, is almost three times longer than books I, II, and IV combined. His book is, at bottom, about admonishment.
Our word “admonish” has harsher connotations than the Latin, admonere, which carries overtones of friendliness, wanting what is best for the other, and not wanting to humiliate or embarrass. St. John Bosco, whose feast day was yesterday, was an expert at this kind of admonishment. “A word to the wise is sufficient” – that is, simply to indicate that something is to be done or avoided is sufficient “admonishment” to the wise.
And yet, undeniably, an admonishment is a correction, and not without inducement to fear of God.
Might a bishop on St. Gregory’s terms solely welcome, solely embrace, solely accompany, solely bless – neglecting necessary admonishment at every step?
No, he says, quite firmly. Because a bishop should be zealous for righteousness, he must be alert, indignant, aroused, even rigid (Latin: erectus) against any sort of transgression. (II.6) Indeed, he says, insofar as the sheep in his flock act peaceably and righteously, a bishop has no standing, as an unequal, to rule over them. In humility, he must recognize himself as simply a companion of those who live well. Rather, the office he holds, whereby he enjoys some kind of inequality over others – to rule – is divinely ordered specifically as a correction of vice.
He has harsh words for bishops who boss around others “for the purpose of domination” and warns of their coming divine punishment. (Matthew 24:48 ff) But an “even more grievous delinquency,” he says, is when, “among perverse persons, equality is kept up more than discipline.”
He means by “equality” accompanying others, who are not living well, as companions, as though they were living well, without due correction. His Biblical example is Eli who, “overcome by false affection, would not punish his delinquent sons.” But God would not be mocked, because thereby he “smote himself along with his sons before the strict judge with a cruel doom.” (1 Samuel 4:17-18)
Yes, of course, a pastor must show not only zeal against a sin but also compassion: not only justice but also mercy. But attention to justice and correction come first, and the other things work as if by moderating and soothing. His anchoring text here is: “That which was broken you have not bound up, and that which was cast away you have not brought back.” (Ezekiel 34:4) To fail to correct a sin is to fail to bind up the fracture. To fail to do so with loving-kindness is to cast away what was brought back.
“Care should be taken that a guide (rector) show himself to those under him as a mother in loving-kindness, and as a father in discipline. . .there is much wanting both to discipline and to compassion, if one be had without the other.”
He gives a startling interpretation of the mercy showed by the Good Samaritan in the parable:
For hence it is that, as the Truth teaches (Luke 10:34), the man is brought by the care of the Samaritan half dead into the inn, and both wine and oil are applied to his wounds; the wine to make them smart (mordeantur), the oil to soothe them. For whosoever superintends the healing of wounds must needs administer in wine the smart of pain, and in oil the softness of loving-kindness, to the end that through wine what is festering may be purged, and through oil what is curable may be soothed. Gentleness, then, is to be mingled with severity; a sort of compound is to be made of both; so that subjects be neither exulcerated by too much asperity, nor relaxed by too great kindness.
If, through a pastor’s instruction or declaration, the wounds (sins) do not sting – if they do not feel as though they bite and cut, if they do not vex and grieve – the pastor has simply failed to do his job. He has not done the half of it because neither, then, will his attempts to soothe and mollify have any good effect. “Hence David says, ‘Your rod and your staff, they have comforted me.’ (Psalm 23:4) For with a rod we are smitten, with a staff we are supported.”
In the Holy Mass, Scripture and homily should play more the role of reproof, while the Eucharist of comforting. What he means, St. Gregory says, “is well signified by that ark of the tabernacle, in which, together with the tables, there as a rod and manna; because, if with knowledge of sacred Scripture in the good pastor’s breast there is the rod of constraint, there should be also the manna of sweetness.”
Do not be deceived, Gregory says: Only in the supreme governance of God are justice and mercy so thoroughly intermingled that His mercy simply is His justice. Subordinate authorities such as bishops must attain to each separately, while combining them.
