Collect taken from the optional memorial of St. John Damascene, priest and doctor.
Collect: Grant, we pray, O Lord, that we may be helped by the prayers of the Priest Saint John Damascene, so that the true faith, which he excelled in teaching, may always be our light and our strength. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son…
“Grant, we pray, O Lord, that we may be helped by the prayers of the Priest Saint John Damascene”
– By invoking St. John Damascene specifically as a priest, the Church is alluding to the reality that each of us participates in the work of Christ in a particular way, according to our vocation.
“so that the true faith, which he excelled in teaching, may always be our light and our strength”
– The True Faith is meant to be light and strength for us. Yet, because of our fallen state, we often see the demands of the faith as a burden and it’s truths as obscure or irrelevant. Nonetheless, with the grace of God, won for us by St. John’s prayers, we can begin to realize the fact that having access to faith’s dogmas gives us stability in a crazy world and that the moral demands of the faith provide direction and therefore a strength which is not available to those who are aimless or unscrupulous.
Questions & Advice: Do you resent the Church’s teaching in some particular area? Do you see her moral and intellectual demands as a burden? Do you perhaps simply not care about some of Her teachings?
Read about Man’s search for Truth in the Catechism (27-38). You may also enjoy reading some of what John Damascene has written or getting to know about his life. He lived under Muslim domination, but did not let the less-than-Christian culture around him prevent him from becoming one of the greatest teachers of the faith in Church history.
Another suggestion is that you pick a teaching of the Church you don’t like or don’t know very well. Read up on it and spend a few minutes in prayer asking John Damascene to help you understand and appreciate this particular truth.
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| Sancte Joanne Damascene, ora pro nobis! |