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One of the memories that my Great Aunt Celestine Dougherty and her older brothers James and John Dougherty had during their years in elementary school was one year when they all had the same brand-new teacher who was assigned by the principal to teach several grades in one classroom in the local public school. Their teacher, a recent graduate of East Stroudsburg Middle School, was their oldest sister Anna. Anna had told them that they could address her by her first name at home-- where they all lived with their widowed grandmother. But at school they had to address her as Miss Dougherty since she was their teacher. Of course, it didn’t take long for them to test this. The reaction was swift. Anna Dougherty wasn’t going to take any nonsense. I am particularly interested in their older sister Anna, because in time she became my paternal grandmother. Even though she had retired from the classroom when she married my paternal grandfather John Coady Dillon, Grandma Dillon kept a close eye on the academic progress of her children and grandchildren. And I can assure you that she could be stern when she thought the occasion called for that. Once a teacher, always a teacher.

Last week we looked at the life and accomplishments of Pope Saint Leo the Great. Ninety years after Leo died in 461, Gregory the First, the second Pope (and Doctor of the Church) to receive the title of Great, was born. Gregory was from an important senatorial family. Most of his adult life was lived in the midst of the Lombard invasions, the last and the worst of the barbarian onslaughts that devastated Italy at the end of the Western Empire. As a young man he served as prefect of Rome. After five years at this post, he resigned from his position to enter monastic life. Gregory used his family resources to establish seven monasteries and entered the house he established in Rome (St. Andrew on the Caelian Hill). His intention was to spend the rest of his life as a simple monk in the monastery. But Pope Pelagius II convinced him to serve as his diplomatic representative at the imperial court at Constantinople. After serving at that post for six years, Gregory was elected the abbot of the monastery of St. Andrew on the Caelian Hill. Gregory was to spend the next twenty-six years in public roles in the church. In time his experiences made him one of the most effective bishops of Rome.

As we continue our series on the Doctors of the Church, we encounter today one of two Popes who have merited the accolade “the Great.” Born around the year 390, Leo grew up in a tumultuous time in Italy. After Alaric sacked Rome in 410, the emperor Honorius retreated to Ravenna, a city that was thought to be safer than Rome. Increasingly the city of Rome and much of Italy looked to the Bishop of Rome for leadership. When he was elected Pope in 440, Leo proved to be a leader who combined seriousness of purpose and measured judgment along with the humility people expected to find in a bishop. The twenty-one years of his pontificate were taken up with a series of crises both political and ecclesiastical.

This week we look at St. Peter Chrysologus who was named a Doctor of the Church in 1729 by Pope Benedict XIII. We really know very little about him. He was born at Imola in northern Italy, probably around 380. He became the Archbishop of Ravenna around 430. At that point in time Ravenna was the capital of the Western Empire as well as the residence of Emperor Valentinian III and his mother Galla Placida. Several of his sermons were delivered in the imperial presence.