December 11, 2022 - "St. John Damascene"

I am writing this column on Sunday, December 4, which is usually the liturgical commemoration of St. John Damascene.  Pope Benedict spoke about St. John Damascene (John of Damascus) in his General Audience on May 6, 2009.  Let’s read what the Holy Father said about St. John Damascene on that occasion:
 
John Damascene was a personage of prime importance in the history of Byzantine theology, a great Doctor in the history of the Universal Church.  Above all he was an eyewitness of the passage from the Greek and Syriac Christian cultures shared by the Eastern part of the Byzantine Empire to the Islamic culture, which spread through its military conquests in the territory known as the Middle or Near East.  John, born into a wealthy Christian family, at an early age assumed the role, perhaps already held by his father, of Treasurer of the Caliphate.  Very soon, however, dissatisfied with life at court, he decided on a monastic life, and entered the monastery of Mar Saba.  This was around the year 700.  He never again left the monastery, but dedicated all his energy to ascesis [the practice of severe self-discipline for religious reasons] and literary work, not disdaining a certain amount of pastoral activity, as is shown by his numerous homilies.  His liturgical commemoration is on December 4.  Pope Leo XIII proclaimed him Doctor of the Universal Church in 1890.
 
St. John Damascene is remembered today primarily for three reasons.  First of all, he is known for his writings against the iconoclasts, who opposed the veneration of images.  The Byzantine Emperor Leo III issued a decree in 726 forbidding the veneration of icons [sacred images] and ordering their destruction throughout the empire.  Because St. John Damascene lived in Muslim territory, Leo III and other iconoclasts could not silence him.  Second, he is famous for his treatise, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, a summary of the thought of the Greek Fathers of the Church (of which he is considered the last).  It is thought that this book is to Eastern Schools what the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas became to the West.  Third, St. John Damascene is known as a poet.  In fact, he is considered one of the two greatest poets of the Eastern Church.  The other one is St. Romanus the Melodist.  He also had a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.  His sermons on her feast days are also well known.
 
Let me close this column with a quotation from his Exposition of the Orthodox Faith:
 
“The saints must be honored as friends of Christ and children and heirs of God, as John the theologian and evangelist says: ‘But as many as received him, he gave them the power to be made the sons of God….’ Let us carefully observe the manner of life of all the apostles, martyrs, ascetics, and just men who announced the coming of the Lord.  And let us emulate their faith, charity, hope, zeal, life, patience under suffering, and perseverance unto death, so that we may also share their crowns of glory.”
 
Until next week,
Fr. John