http://www.archive.org/details/PastoralCare
Pastoral Care (The Book of Pastoral Rule) by St. Gregory the Great
This is the medieval management book, written by the pope who set up the Catholic Church to survive the Dark Ages. It was written for bishops and read by huge numbers of European lay leaders as well as church ones. This is the book that King Alfred so wanted to spread around that he had it translated into English. This is a book that still has important lessons today.
The first part considers what sort of person you ought to have in charge and what sort not, as well as good and bad reasons for wanting to lead and teach. It also warns of the bad side of being in charge. The second part considers what sort of life should be led by someone in charge. (Hint: the virtuous and humble kind.) The third part considers how to govern, discipline, and teach one's subordinates fairly and well. It includes thoughts on how to deal with different types of personalities. The fourth part is about how the successful ruler must continually examine his life so as to govern, criticize and discipline himself.
You can see why this isn't exactly next to Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and Genghis in the Business section of your bookstore. But is there much ultimate satisfaction in holding a good position and pulling down a good paycheck, if you aren't also a good person who's good to the people around you?
This audio is part of the collection: Maria Lectrix Audio
Books It also belongs to collection: Audio Books & Poetry
Artist/Composer: St. Gregory the Great
Date: 2006-09-12
Source: Trans. by Barmby, from Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Vol. XII
Keywords: Audiobook - Nonfiction; religion; leadership
Creative Commons license: Public Domain
| 1 | Part I, Chs. 00-02: | Prologue. That the unskilful venture not to approach an office of authority. That none should enter on a place of government who practise not in life what they have learnt by study. | 11:18 |
| 2 | Part I, Chs. 03-04: | Of the weight of government; and that all manner of adversity is to be despised, and prosperity feared. That for the most part the occupation of government dissipates the solidity of the mind. | 8:50 |
| 3 | Part I, Chs. 5-7: | Of those who are able to profit others by virtuous example in supreme rule, but fly from it in pursuit of their own ease. That those who fly from the burden of rule through humility are then truly humble when they resist not the divine decrees. That sometimes some laudably desire the office of preaching, while others, as laudably, are drawn to it by compulsion. | 10:21 |
| 4 | Part I, Chs. 8-9: | Of those who covet pre-eminence, and seize on the language of the Apostle to serve the purpose of their own cupidity. That the mind of those who wish for pre-eminence for the most part flatters itself with a feigned promise of good works.Chs. 8-9: Of those who covet pre-eminence, and seize on the language of the Apostle to serve the purpose of their own cupidity. That the mind of those who wish for pre-eminence for the most part flatters itself with a feigned promise of good works. | 8:17 |
| 5 | Part I, Chs. 10-11: | What matter of man ought to come to rule. What matter of man ought not. | 15:04 |
| 6 | Part II, Chs. 0-3: | How One in a Place of Rule Ought to Act in It; Pure in Thought; A Leader by His Actions | 13:08 |
| 7 | Part II, Ch. 4: | That the ruler should be discreet in keeping silence, profitable in speech. | 9:01 |
| 8 | Part II, Chs. 5-6: | That the ruler should be a near neighbour to every one in compassion, and exalted above all in contemplation. That the ruler should be, through humility, a companion of good livers, but, through the zeal of righteousness, rigid against the vices of evildoers. | 27:13 |
| 9 | Part II, Ch. 7: | That the ruler relax not his care for things within or without. | 15:41 |
| 10 | Chs. 8-9: | That the ruler should not set his heart on pleasing men, and yet should give heed to what ought to please them. That the ruler ought to be careful to understand how commonly vices pass themselves off as virtues. | 8:23 |
| 11 | Ch. 10: | What the ruler's discrimination should be between correction and connivance, between fervour and gentleness. | 17:25 |
| 12 | Ch. 11: | How intent the ruler ought to be on meditations in the Sacred Law. | 5:03 |
| 13 | Prologue and Chs. 1-2: | What diversity there ought to be in the art of preaching. How the poor and the rich should be admonished. | 12:52 |
| 14 | Chs. 3-4: | How the joyful and sad, and subjects and prelates, ought to be admonished | 11:47 |
| 15 | Chs. 5-7: | How servants and masters, the wise and the dull, and the impudent and bashful, are to be admonished. | 6:41 |
| 16 | Chs. 8-9: | How the impudent and the bashful, the forward and the fainthearted should be admonished. | 19:06 |
| 17 | Chs. 10-11: | How those glad for others, the envious, the simple, and the crafty should be admonished. | 15:46 |
| 18 | Ch. 12: | How the healthy and the sick should be admonished | 14:04 |
| 19 | Chs. 13-14: | How to admonish those who do good out of fear, and those who don't fear; the silent and the talkative. | 17:55 |
| 20 | Chs. 15-16: | The slothful and the hasty, and the meek and the passionate. | 14:49 |
| 21 | Chs. 17-18: | The humble and the haughty, and the obstinate and the fickle. | 13:47 |
| 22 | Ch. 19: | The gluttons and the abstinent. | 11:12 |
| 23 | Ch. 20: | Those who give generously and those who seize from others | 15:20 |
| 24 | Ch. 21: | Those who don't give, and those who give and seize from others | 9:16 |
| 25 | Ch. 22: | Those at odds and those at peace. | 12:55 |
| 26 | Chs. 23-24: | Troublemakers and peacemakers; people who twist and misunderstand scripture and people who are proud about their understanding. | 18:00 |
| 27 | Ch. 25: | Reluctant qualified preachers and eager unqualified ones | 13:24 |
| 28 | Ch. 26: | People who succeed and get what they want -- and people who do not. | 10:41 |
| 29 | Ch. 27: | The married and the single. | 14:03 |
| 30 | Ch. 28: | Those who have committed sins of the flesh and those who have not. | 13:44 |
| 31 | Ch. 29: | Those who have committed sins in action and those who have sinned in thought. | 10:30 |
| 32 | Ch. 30: | Those who bewail sins but keep committing them and those who stop committing sins but do not bewail them. | 11:11 |
| 33 | Ch. 31: | Those who praise their sins, and those who condemn their sins but keep on sinning. | 5:57 |
| 34 | Ch. 32: | Those who sin precipitantly and those who plan it. | 9:45 |
| 35 | Ch. 33: | Those who often sin in little things and those who avoid little sins but fall into big ones. | 6:54 |
| 36 | Ch. 34: | Those who do not do good things and those who start good things but do not finish them | 12:11 |
| 37 | Ch. 35: | Those who do bad things secretly and those who secretly do good things | 8:29 |
| 38 | Chs. 36-38: | Exhorting many people at once with different problems. Exhorting one person with contrary passions. Leaving less urgent vices alone to treat more urgent ones. | 11:01 |
| 39 | Chs. 39-40: | Do not preach deep things to weak souls. Of the work and voice of preaching. | 5:37 |
| 40 | Part IV: | How the preacher should go back and preach to himself. | 9:30 |