[Rank]
S. Gregorii VII Papae Confessoris;;Duplex;;3;;vide C4

[Rule]
vide C4;
9 lectiones
CPapaM=Urban;

[Oratio]
O God, the might of all them which put their trust in thee, Who to keep thy Church free, didst make thy blessed Confessor and Bishop Gregory strong to wrestle and to suffer, grant unto us, following his example, and helped by his prayers, that with us as with him, if they fight against us, they shall not prevail against us.
$Per Dominum

[Commemoratio]
!Commemoration of St. Urban I, Pope and Martyr
@Commune/C2: Oratio Gregem

[Lectio4]
Hildebrand, who reigned as Pope under the name of Gregory VII, was born at Saona in Tuscany. By his teaching, by his holiness, and by his graces of all kinds, he was a noble light of the Church, whose brightness hath shone throughout all lands. There is a story to the effect that when he was a little child without any schooling, he was playing at the feet of a carpenter who was planing wood, and that God guided his hand to arrange the shavings which fell into the form of letters, making the inspired words of David, He shall have dominion from sea to sea, (Ps. lxxi. 8,) a fore-shadowing, as it were, of that wide lordship over the earth which was afterwards his. He was taken to Rome, and brought up under the shelter of St. Peter. As a young man he bitterly sorrowed over the oppression of the freedom of the Church by the laity, and over the corruption of the clergy themselves. He took the habit of a monk in the Abbey of Cluny, which was then in all the glory of the severest observance of the Rule of St. Benedict. There he served God's majesty with such warmth of earnestness that the saintly fathers of the convent chose him to be their Prior. But the Providence of God had greater things in store for him, whereby to make him a source of health to many, and he was brought away from Cluny. He was first elected Abbot of the monastery of St. Paul-without-the-walls at Rome, and afterwards created a Cardinal of the Roman Church. Under the Popes Leo IX, Victor II, Stephen IX, Nicholas II, and Alexander II, he discharged great offices of trust, and the duties of a Legate, and Blessed Peter Damian, speaking of him at this time, calleth him a man of most holy and honest thoughts. When Pope Victor II. sent him as his Legate into France, he, by a miracle, forced the Bishop of Lyons, who was befouled by the pollution of simony, to acknowledge his sin in the Council of Tours he wrung from Berenger a second abjuration of his heresy and he prevailed against the schism of Cadolaus, and strangled it.

[Lectio5]
After the death of Alexander II., Hildebrand, against his own will and to his own grief, was, on the 22nd day of April, in the year of Christ 1073, chosen Pope by one common consent of all. Reigning as Gregory VII., he was as the sun shining upon the Temple of the Most High. (Ecclus. 1. 7.) Mighty both in word and deed, he toiled for the restoration of Ecclesiastical discipline, for the spread of the Faith, for the defence of the freedom of the Church, for the suppression of error and corruption, so that since the time of the Apostles there is said never to have been a Pope who bore more labour and trouble for the sake of God's Church, or contended more manfully for her liberties. He purged diverse provinces of the pollution of simony. Like a brave soldier he withstood without dread the unrighteous contendings of the Emperor Henry IV., against whom he shrank not from setting himself as a wall of defence for the house of Israel. And when the said Henry fell into the depths of sin he cut him off from the communion of the faithful, and from his kingdom, and loosed the nations that were subject to him from their sworn allegiance.

[Lectio6]
While he was celebrating solemn Mass, godly men saw a dove descend from heaven* perch upon his right shoulder, and spread out its wings so as to veil his head, a testimony that it was not by reasonings of man's wisdom, but by the teachings of the Holy Ghost, that he was guided in his rule over the Church. When the armies of the infamous Henry encompassed Rome, and hedged her in on every side, a great fire which the enemy had raised became extinct, when Gregory made the sign of the Cross towards it. The Norman Duke, Robert Guiscard, at length delivered Gregory from the hand of Henry, and he departed from Rome, first to the Abbey of Monte Cassino, and thence onward to Salerno, to dedicate the Church of St. Matthew the Apostle at that place. While he was preaching to the people there, on a certain day he was smitten with grievous pains, and fell into a sickness whereof he foresaw that he should never be healed. As he lay on his death-bed, Gregory's last words were I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and therefore I am dying in exile. He was a man really holy, a visitor of sin, and a most leal soldier of the Church. It is past reckoning how many sufferings he manfully bore, and how much he wisely ordained in many Councils, which he gathered together in Rome. He had been Pope twelve years, when, (on the 25th day of May,) in the year of salvation 1085, he went hence to be ever with the Lord. Both during his life and after his death he was marked by signs and wonders not a few. His holy body was honourably buried in the Cathedral Church of Salerno.

[Lectio94]
Pope Gregory VII, the former Hildebrand, was born near Soana in Tuscany. As noble as any of the nobility in learning, in holiness and in every kind of virtue, he was a shining light to the whole Church of God. As a young man, he donned the religious habit at the monastery of Cluny, and served God with such zeal and devotion that he was chosen Prior by the holy religious of that monastery. Later, he was made Abbot of the monastery of St. Paul-outside-the-Walls, and then Cardinal of the Roman Church, performing noteworthy services and missions under Popes Leo IX, Victor II, Stephen IX, Nicholas II and Alexander II. At the death of Alexander, he was unanimously elected Pope, and stood out as a most zealous promoter and defender of the freedom of the Church, for which he suffered many things, even having to leave Rome. His last words, as he lay dying, were: “I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and therefore I am dying in exile.” He went to heaven in year of salvation 1085, and his body was buried with honour in the Cathedral of Salerno.
&teDeum