A Heavy Burden

INTRODUCTION This is the first letter with a hint to Gregory's elevation to the papacy. He was more a monk, who longed for a contemplative life, but he was drawn (again) to the world. And was congratulated for what he did not want by his friends. He doesn't hesitate to point to the fact, that he is not the only one 'bound by the burden of office'.

Letter 1,3 - to Paul the Scholastic. September 590.
"However much strangers congratulate me, due to the honor of my episcopal office, I do not put much value on it. But when you congratulate me over this matter, it brings me no little pain, as you are very well aware of my wish and yet believe that I have been successful. For it would have been the highest promotion for me, if what I wanted could have been fulfilled, if I had been able to achieve my desire, which you have long known about, the attainment of longed-for peace and quiet. But as things are, because I am held bound by the chains of this office in the city of Rome, I have something over which I may also rejoice, to your Glory. For with the arrival of the ex-consul and most eminent Lord Leo, I suspect that you will not remain in Sicily. And when you too, bound by your office, realize that you are kept in Rome, you will recognize what grief and bitterness I myself am suffering."

Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 121.