Leadership Journal

How can I maintain a spiritual life while dealing with people's incessant problems and needs? The question didn't originate with a pastor whose cell phone kept interrupting his prayer life. It goes back at least as far as Gregory, the first practicing monk to be elected, over his own objections, to the papacy. Gregory (540-604) preferred the life of solitude and contemplation, but it was his abilities as a leader as well as his writings on the integration of the inner life with active ministry that that caused him to be called, "Gregory the Great." When he became pope in 590, Rome had been attacked for several years by the Lombards, a fierce Germanic tribe that had crossed the Alps to plunder the Eternal City. The emperor, distant in Constantinople, was distracted by a war with Persia, and could not offer aid to Rome. The years of war, famine, and plague had prompted Rome's senatorial class to flee the city, when meant that the newly-elected Pope Gregory I was the only civil authority left. So he was immediately thrust into managing supplies and troop movements, and negotiating with terrorists.

In July 592, he averted disaster by negotiating a difficult peace with a local Lombard duke. But the following year the worst occurred: the Lombard king himself, Agilulf, besieged Rome. In an act unprecedented in the history of the papacy, Gregory met Agilulf on the very steps of St. Peter's to negotiate. With diplomatic words and generous tribute, Gregory persuaded the marauding king to leave the city untouched.

Thus Romans came to owe their pope more than a spiritual allegiance. Gregory's "secular" responsibilities extended far beyond relations with the Lombards. He gave leadership as Rome suffered under plague, flooding, and crop failure.

Gregory lamented, "Cities have been destroyed, fortifications overthrown, provinces depopulated, no cultivators occupy the land. …" Every fresh crisis demanded an a response. How hard for a "monk pope," amid the maelstrom, to find time for his first passion—the exercises of devotion and prayer.

Every pastor today who is torn between preparing reports for the next elders meeting or spending time in study and prayer recognizes the tension: busyness vs. intimacy with Christ, Martha's service vs. Mary's worship.

This was Gregory's continuous struggle, and his writings on the balance between those two was perhaps his greatest legacy. In his Pastoral Care, Gregory formulated a pattern of spiritual renewal in the midst of busyness, spiritual leadership amid secular demands. No wonder the Roman Catholic Church, for centuries, put Gregory's writings into the hands of every newly consecrated bishop.

Born into a wealthy family and educated in grammar, rhetoric, law, and letters, Gregory was well prepared for public service, and in 573 he served as prefect of Rome, the highest civil position in the land, overseeing the city's police force, food supply, and finances. But the work left Gregory unsatisfied. His heart was troubled.

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