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Death of Gregory

CHAPTER XI

"The day is drawing to its close

And what good deeds since first it rose
Have I presented, Lord, to Thee,

As offerings of my ministry!

What wrongs repressed, what right maintained,
What struggle passed, what victory gained!

For Thine own purpose Thou hast sent
The strife and the discouragement."

The Golden Legend.

As if Heaven had reserved for Matilda one ray of comfort in her hour of sorrow, she found Gregory still alive although she was but just in time to bid him farewell.

Kneeling at his side she bowed her head in inexpressible grief as, with uplifted hand, the Pontiff bestowed upon her the last blessing he would give upon earth. In a faint and weary voice the dying exile besought Heaven to confer upon his staunch ally "pardon for her faults and benediction for her merits."

The Holy Father then received the Viaticum at the hands of Hugo of Cluny, who had braved the long journey in order to embrace his friend ere they should be re-united in heaven. "His faltering lips had closed on the transubstantial elements." The final unction had given assurance that the body so soon to be committed to the dust would rise again in honour and incorruption. Anxious to catch the last accents of that once oracular voice, the mourners were bending over him when he breathed out his spirit, exclaiming, "We have loved justice and hated iniquity, and for this we die in exile." "Nay, Holy Father," replied Hugo, "in exile thou 1Essays on Ecclesiastical Biography. Right Honourable Sir James Stephen.

canst not die, who as Vicar of Christ and His apostles hast received the nations for thine inheritance and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession." A smile illumined the features of the dying Pontiff. Probably the prophecy of his childhood was recalled to his mind by the words of the Abbot: "He shall have dominion from sea to sea." And in the light of futurity he realised that "though the man died the cause lived."

This was on 23rd May 1085, when Gregory was in the twelfth year of his pontificate and the seventy-third of his age. Alban Butler says of him, "He preserved a perfect tranquillity of soul, having his heart strongly fixed on God.” "Even the enemies of Gregory," says a Protestant historian, "are obliged to confess that the ruling thought of the Pontiff, the independence of the Church, was indispensable for the propagation of religion, and the reformation of society, and to that end it was necessary to break the fetters which bound the Church to the State to the great detriment of religion. It was necessary for the Church to be an entirety, a unit in itself and by itself, a Divine institution, whose influence is salutary to all men, to be arrested by no prince of the world. The Church is God's society, of which no mortal can claim the goods or the privileges, and of which no prince can, without crime, usurp the jurisdiction. As there is but one God and one faith, so there is but one Church with one Head." 1 "The independence of the Church," continues the learned writer, who certainly had no leanings towards the faith which Gregory professed, "that is the great point round which grouped all his thoughts, all his writings, all his actions like luminous rays; she was the soul of all his operations."

Gregory himself, in one of his epistles, expresses the same thought. "We desire but one thing, that the impious repent and return to their creator. We have but one desire, that the Church, oppressed and overturned everywhere, resume her 1 Histoire du pape Gregoire VII. et son siècle. Par J. Voigt.

Fulfilment of the Prophecy

ancient splendour and solidity. We have but one object, that God be glorified in us, and we with our brethren, even with those who persecute us, so that we may all merit to arrive at eternal life. Regain courage, then, conceive a lively hope, fix your gaze upon the standard of the eternal King where He says to us, 'In patience possess ye your souls.""

Although Gregory had, as he mournfully observed, "died in exile," his labours had reaped a glorious harvest. He had amply fulfilled his mission and achieved the end for which for so many years he had toiled and suffered. The Church, animated by his example and zeal, henceforth asserted her right to freedom of action and boldly placed a restraining hand upon the arrogance which claimed the right of choosing and electing her Vicars.

Amidst the manifold cares and distractions inseparable from his pontificate, Gregory had rigidly maintained the rule of St Benedict, which enjoined the devotion of several hours a day to literary pursuits. By this regular and methodical use of his pen he was able, even during the pressing business of his government, to indite no less than ten Books of Epistles, together with two appendices, and of his letters, lengthy as most of them were, more than two hundred and seventy have been preserved. "His style is," remarks the critic, "agreeably to the characteristic of his mind, bold, vigorous and impressive." Throughout his writings, whether letters or theological treatises, there runs the same thought of tender solicitude for the Church of which he was the temporal head, and this thread, woven as it were into the very texture of his life, is traceable in all his Epistles. "That is why," continues the historian, "Gregory insisted so much on the submission of the Emperor to the decrees of the Church."1

The highest testimony to Gregory's genius is that borne in 1877 by His Holiness, Leo. XIII., who was at the time

1 Voigt.

Cardinal Pecci, during a conversation on the character of the great Pontiff. "I honour him," said the Cardinal, "for the holiness and austerity of his life. His was a creative and constructive mind. Others, like St Peter Damian, saw and lamented the evils of the day. They fought courageously and perseveringly against simony in high places, and against immorality among the clergy. But Hildebrand, for he was not then Pope, saw deeper and more clearly into the causes from which these evils arose. To his penetrating eye the true cause appeared to be the slavery of the Church to lay influence. His eagle eye detected this blot, and through his influence the Pope in Council solemnly decreeed that henceforth and forever the choice of a successor to St Peter should rest in the College of Cardinals, the Bishops, Priests, Deacons and sub-Deacons of the Roman Church. For a thousand years the choice of a Pope had depended on the chances and circumstances of the hour. From that time forward it was placed in the hands of a responsible and competent authority." "The Church is to-day," continued the Cardinal, “what Hildebrand made it. Since the days of St Peter there is no hand whose work is so conspicuous in the constitution of the Church as that of Hildebrand." 1

It was Gregory's practical Christianity which enabled him to gain the respect of such men as Robert Guiscard and rendered him "a power among his contemporaries, and the dread of evil-doers." Historians have remarked, as a revelation of his natural kindness of heart, that, living in an age when human life was held in little value, he allowed none to be put to death during his pontificate. Although he sternly and unflinchingly rebuked error he was ever tender to penitents, and personal affronts he never resented.

He was interred in Salerno beneath the dome of the Gothic cathedral founded by Robert Guiscard, and which,

1Canossa, edited by the Right Rev. Mgr. Gradwell, Domestic Prelate to His Holiness Leo XIII.

Saint Gregory

prior to the departure of the Duke from Italy, had been dedicated by the Pope to Saint Matthew.1

and

Nearly five hundred years later the body of Gregory was brought to the light of day. Dressed in his pontifical robes lay the warrior of the Church before whom kings had stood abashed and tyrants trembled, and to whom the poor oppressed had never looked in vain. His body was, we learn, wonderfully preserved, and so little changed and "lifelike" were his features that he appeared to the beholders "as if merely asleep."

The Church, ever ready to honour the memory of her children who have endured tribulation on her behalf, has not forgotten the Holy Pontiff who suffered so much persecution to preserve her rights inviolate. In 1584, on the anniversary of his death, his name was enrolled in the list of saints by order of Pope Gregory XIII., who reigned at that time.

"All Italy," we are told, "was convulsed by the news of his death," but probably Matilda's subjects felt his loss more acutely than did the changeable Romans, who, after his departure, had quietly submitted to the rule of the anti-pope. In their homes, on the mountain-brow or in the sheltered valley, the Tuscan peasants lamented his loss. They spoke with bated breath of the Pontiff whose stern features relaxed at the approach of the humblest of his faithful flock, and they wept with true Italian abandonment as they called to mind the many instances of his kindly condescension and

interest in their welfare.

To Robert Guiscard the tidings were overwhelming. "He shed tears and seemed as grieved," writes his contemporary, "as if he had lost his wife and his son. His sorrow for the Pope's death was great, because a firm friendship had united them. Never had either fallen back from the affection which they had pledged to each other."

'Nearly four centuries afterwards the remains of the unfortunate Margaret of Anjou, widow of Henry VI. of England, were deposited within this cathedral.

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