September 3 2025 - St. Gregory the Great - Striving for true greatness (School Mass)

 Throughout the year, we celebrate the saints as our heroes of Christian greatness. St. Clare, St. Francis, St. Paul, St. Benedict, St. Catherine—each of them show us what Christian greatness looks like. 

Today we celebrate a Saint, Saint Gregory, who is one of only a very few number of saints, in fact, a very few number of people in all of human history, who has been given the title “the great”. He is known as Saint Gregory the Great.

St. Gregory is known as “the great” for a number of reasons: he served the Church as Pope, and had great administrative skills. He served with the Gospel with great diligence, sending missionaries all over the world. He had great care for the poor. He ensured that the priests of the Church had a love for the poor and would go out into the streets of Rome to find and care for the poor in person. He had a great impact on the intellectual and spiritual life of the Church. And Gregorian Chant—the type of latin chant that has been used in the Church for over 1400 years is named after him—so he has a had a great impact on the Church’s worship.

But, in the end, most importantly, Saint Gregory is known as the great, not just because he a competent administrator, theologian or liturgist, but because he poured himself out in service to Christ.  He knew that true human greatness is found when we make serving God the most important thing in our life. 

In the Gospel today, the apostles are arguing about wanting to be great. And Jesus instructs them that true greatness isn’t about having power over people, about the number of people that owe you favors. True greatness isn’t about the number of followers you have—on the internet or real life. 

True greatness is about using your time, gifts, and resources to serve others—to help others.

Again this is why St. Gregory, and clare, and benedict, and paul, and francis are all great because they recognized the importance of serving God through service of others.

Jesus himself is the great exemplar of this—he serves the will of the Father to provide the greatest service to humanity possible, the salvation of our souls. Without Jesus’ great act of service—the service of his self-sacrifice—humanity would be lost forever.

Today, we do well to consider, how we are called to strive for greatness. Yes, we should strive to be great students, great teachers, great leaders, but not so we can hoard power over people, or be most famous in the eyes of the world. Rather, we strive for greatness in the eyes of God—great holiness, great imitation of Jesus, great charity, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.