20 August, 573 was a date of great celebration for the people and church of Tour in France. A great celebration, that is, for everyone except one man. His name was Gregory, he was thirty four years old and the reason that he wasn’t celebrating was the same reason that everyone else was: he had just been consecrated Bishop of Tours, much against his wishes, after the representatives of the people overtook him at the court of King Sigebert of Austrasia and pressed him to take the post. Partly it was his genuine Christian humility (one of the traits which recommended him to the people of Tours) but partly I suspect because being a bishop in those days was a hazardous matter.

Tours lay on borderlands. Gregory lived with one foot in the dying world of the Roman Empire and the other in the new culture of early medieval Europe. He also lived on the border between the Frankish culture of the Merovingians to the north and the Roman culture of the south of Gaul. He had to navigate the difficult and often violent politics of his time. And Gregory of Tours also faced the other danger of his time: bubonic plague.

Gregory drew his strength from his firm faith in Christ and in the communion of saints. He was particularly devoted to Martin of Tours, a predecessor of his to whose prayers he credited his recovery from a serious illness (possibly the plague)

In times of danger, fear and change I believe, we, like Gregory, can draw strength and courage from the lives of those who have gone before us with the sign of faith