Somewhere around the year 1400, a custom was introduced into the papal coronation ceremony. As the new Pope was being vested in the robes of his office, flax was set on fire in a small bowl and its smoke wafted under his nose. A simple priest or monk stood next to him and whispered in his ear in Latin, Sic transit gloria mundi, meaning, “thus the glory of the world passes away.” It was a reminder to the new pope that all the pomp and pageantry of the papal court was nothing, the political power of his office temporary, and that he must seek for himself, and the Church he was called to lead, those things which eternally endure.

While preparing a short reflection for this past week’s memorial of Pope St. Gregory the Great (Sept. 3), I came across a quote from him that got me thinking. Toward the end of his life, Gregory wrote these words: “Perhaps it is not difficult after all for a man to part with his possessions, but it is certainly most difficult for him to part with himself. To renounce what one has is a minor thing, but to renounce what one is, that is asking much…”