Of Christian family, St. Gregory was born in Rome around 540. As a young man he became prefect of the city. Later, he distributed his patrimony to monasteries and became a monk in the Benedictine abbey of St. Andrew, of which he later became abbot. Pope Pelagius II appointed him papal legate in Constantinople, but the pontiff died of the plague. And in the year 590 St. Gregory the Great was elected pope who was to become the apostle of England.
During his Pontificate he stood out for his zeal for the liturgy and the elaboration of the Sacramentary that constitutes the fundamental nucleus of the Roman Missal. Also for the promotion of the liturgical chant that bears his name (Gregorian) and his evangelizing impulse.
In the year 597, St. Gregory sent to saint Augustine of Canterbury and a group of forty monks to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons in England. The mission brought the Christian faith to King Ethelbert, who had married Bertha, a Christian princess of the Frankish royal family, and to thousands of Saxons, and laid the foundations for the spread of Christianity in Europe. St. Gregory the Great died on March 12, 604.
Martyrs in Japan, Korea and France
The liturgy also welcomes today the blessed Bartolomé Gutiérrez and companions martyred in Japan. Three of them were Augustinians, one a Jesuit and two Franciscans. They were imprisoned in persecutions against Christians, and wanted to make them apostatize, but they remained firm in the confession of Christ. After being tortured, they were burned in 1632 in Nagasaki.
Saints John Pak Hu-jae and five women were lay people who were also made to suffer for their firmness in the faith, and were beheaded in Seoul (Korea) on September 3, 1839.
The liturgy also celebrates today 72 other blessed French martyrs, mostly priests, from the diocese of Paris or from other dioceses or religious institutes. They were killed on September 3, 1792, one day laterat the Lazarist seminary of St. Fermin in Paris.
