[Rank]
S. Joannis Damasceni Confessoris;;Duplex;;3;;vide C5

[RankNewcal]
S. Joannis Damasceni Confessoris;;Duplex optional;;2;;vide C5

[Name]
John

[Rule]
vide C5;mtv
9 lectiones

[Oratio]
O Almighty and everlasting God, Who didst fill Thy blessed servant John with heavenly teaching, and wondrous strength of spirit to maintain the honouring of holy images. Grant unto us at his prayers and after his example to take pattern by their holy lives whose images we honour, and ever to feel the power of their help.
$Per Dominum

[Lectio4]
This John is called John of Damascus, from his native place. He was of noble birth, and studied sacred and profane letters at Constantinople, under the monk Cosmas. At what time the Emperor Leo the Isaurian was making a wicked attack upon the honouring of holy images, John, at the desire of the Roman Pontiff, Gregory III., earnestly defended both by his words and his writings, the holiness of this honour. By this he roused against him so great a hatred on the part of Leo, that that Prince, by forged letters, accused John as a traitor to the Caliph of Damascus, whom he was serving as a councillor and minister. John denied the charge, but the Caliph was deceived by it, and caused his right hand to be cut off. He called earnestly for the help of the. most holy Virgin, and she manifested the innocency of her servant by reuniting his hand to his arm, as though it had never been cut off. This miracle moved John to carry out a design which he had long had in mind. He obtained from the Caliph, albeit with difficulty, leave to go away, distributed all his goods to feed the poor, and freed all his slaves, then visited as a pilgrim the holy places in Palestine, and at length withdrew, along with his teacher Cosmas, to the monastery of St. Saba, between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. There he was ordained priest.

[Lectio5]
As a monk John set a bright example to all the others, especially as regarded lowliness and obedience. He sought for the lowest offices in the community, as though they were in a peculiar sense his own, and fulfilled them with the greatest care. When he was sent to Damascus to sell baskets made by himself, he welcomed the mockery and jests of the lowest classes in that city where he had before time been charged with the most honourable offices. He was so devoted to obedience that he not only started up to obey every nod of his superiors, but also never thought it right to ask the reason of any duty laid upon him, however difficult or however strange it might be. While thus living he never ceased earnestly to defend the Catholic doctrine as to the honouring of holy images. For this reason he drew upon himself the hatred and persecution of the Emperor Constantine Copronymus, as he had first done that of the Emperor Leo the Isaurian, and this all the more because he freely rebuked the arrogance of these Emperors, who must needs take in hand matters concerning the faith, and pronounce sentence upon them according to their own judgment.

[Lectio6]
It is a marvel how many things John devised both for the protection of the faith, and for the encouragement of godliness, and expressed in his writings both in prose and verse. He was worthy of the high praise which was given him by the Second Council of Nice. On account of the golden streams of his eloquence, he was surnamed Chrysorrhoas, or John of the golden streams. It was not against the enemies of holy images alone that he defended the orthodox faith. He fought stoutly against the Acephali, the Monothelites, and the Theopaschites. He maintained the laws and the power of the Church. He taught with great learning the Primacy of the Prince of the Apostles, and many times calleth him the Pillar of the Churches, the unbroken rock, and the Teacher and Ruler of the world. The whole of his writings are not only steeped in learning and teaching, but have a certain savour of simple piety, especially when he is praising the Mother of God, toward whom he was filled with a special reverence and love. But the greatest praise of John is that he was the first who arranged in order a complete course of theology, and prepared the way in which holy Thomas of Aquino has so clearly dealt with the whole body of sacred doctrine. This truly holy man, full of days and good works, fell asleep in the peace of Christ about the year of salvation 754. The supreme Pontiff, Leo XIII., established his office and Mass throughout the universal church, whereof he also gave him the title of doctor.

[Lectio7]
From the Holy Gospel according to Luke
!Luke 6:6-11
At that time: It came to pass also on another Sabbath, that Jesus entered into the synagogue, and taught; and there was there a man whose right hand was withered. And so on.
_
Homily by St. Peter Chrysologus.
!Sermon 32
This man is a figure of all men. His healing is a type of their healing, and his soundness is a pledge of that soundness for which all have looked so long. The hand of man hath withered through the deadness of faith rather than through the drying up of the sinews, and by the fault of the conscience rather than by the weakness of the flesh. The withering up of man's hand hath been of old time, and a sickness which smote him at the very beginning of the world, and no art or benefit of man could heal that which had been blasted by the wrath of God. That hand had touched the forbidden thing, it had sought that which was unlawful when it had been stretched out to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It had need of Him who had made it, not to lay a plaster upon it, but to cancel the sentence which He had uttered, and to loosen by pardon that which He had bound by judgment.

[Lectio8]
This man's healing is a type of the healing of all men, our perfect health is to be found in Christ, then shall our miserable hand be withered no more when there droppeth thereon the Blood of the Suffering Lord, when it is stretched forth to the Tree of Life, which is the Cross. When it gathereth the mighty fruit of His suffering, when it layeth hold upon the Tree of Salvation, when the body is so nailed thereto with the nails of the Lord that it can never return again to the tree of lust and barren enjoyment. And He said to the man which had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. Rise up and stand forth in the midst, O Thou that dost confess thine own weakness, thou that dost call for pity from on high, thou that canst witness to the power of God; rise up and stand forth in the midst, thou that tellest of the unbelief of the Jews; the power of so many signs hath not pierced them, so many works of healing hath not beset them; let the pity shown to such misery constrain them and soften them.

[Lectio9]
He said unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand, and he did so; and his hand was restored whole as the other. Stretch forth thine hand the hand which had been blasted by a commandment is by a commandment loosed. Stretch forth thine hand the punishment which had been the work of God was a sufficient testimony of Who had been the Judge Who had inflicted it, and the pardon was a proof that the Pardoner was the same. Brethren, pray that upon the synagogue only may the shadow of such an affliction fall, and that there may be in the Church no hand which is withered by greed, shrunken by avarice, paralyzed by theft, stricken by selfishness; but if such there be, let him who is so afflicted give his ear unto the Lord, and stretch forth his hand in works of godliness, let him exercise it in mercy, and set it to almsgiving. He that knoweth not how to lend unto the Lord by giving unto the poor, knoweth not how to be healed by the Lord.
&teDeum