December
11
SAINT DAMASUS, POPE AND CONFESSOR
This great Pontiff comes before us in the
Liturgical Year, not to bring us tidings of Peace, as St.
Melchiades did, but as one of the most
illustrious defenders of the great Mystery of the Incarnation. He defends the
faith of the Universal Church in the divinity of the Word, by condemning, as
his
predecessor Liberius had done, the acts and
the authors of the celebrated Council of Rimini. With his sovereign authority,
he bears witness to the teaching of the Church regarding the Humanity of Jesus
Christ, and condemned the heretic Apollinaris, who taught that Jesus Christ had
only assumed the flesh and not the soul of man. He commissioned St. Jerome to
make a new translation of the New Testament from the Greek, for the use of the
Church of Rome; here, again, giving a further proof of the faith and love which
he bore to the Incarnate Word.
Let
us honour this great Pontiff, whom the Council of Chalcedon calls the ornament
and support of Home by his piety. St. Jerome, too, who looked upon St. Damasus
as his friend and patron, calls him a man of the greatest worth; a man whose
equal could not be found, well versed in the holy Scriptures, and a virgin
Doctor of the virgin Church.
The Legend of the Breviary gives us a brief
account of his life.
Damasus was a Spaniard, a man of eminence and
of great learning in the Scriptures, (and was elected to the Chair of Peter in
the year of our Lord 381) he convoked the First Council of Constantinople,
wherein he crushed the wicked heresy of Eunomius and Macedonius. He confirmed
the condemnation of the Assembly, at Rimini, which condemnation had already been
pronounced by Liberius. This Assembly of Rimini was that in which, to use the
language of St Jerome, Valens and Ursacius brought it about through trickery
that the Faith of Nice was abrogated by mob law, and the world afterwards
groaned in amazement to find itself Arian.
This
Pope built two Basilicas, first, St Lawrence's, near Pompey's Theatre, which he
magnificently enriched, and endowed with houses and farms; and, secondly,
another, over the Catacombs on the Road to Ardea. He also consecrated the
Platonia, where the bodies of St Peter and St Paul lay for some time, and
decorated it with elegant inscriptions in poetry composed by himself. He wrote
on the subject of virginity both in prose and verse, and likewise many other
poems on various subjects.
He
ordained that false accusers should be punished for the offenses which they had
falsely laid to the charge of their neighbours.
He established the usage, which
already prevailed in many churches, of singing the Psalms, both by day and by
night, by alternate choirs, and of adding at the end of each Psalm the words,
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
St Jerome handing over his
work to Pope Saint Damasus
It was at his
command that St Jerome revised the translation of the New Testament to accord
with the Greek text. He ruled the Church for seventeen years, two months, and
twenty-six days. He held five Advent ordinations, wherein he ordained
thirty-one Priests, eleven Deacons, and sixty-two Bishops for divers Sees. At
length he fell asleep in the Lord, in the reign of Theodosius the Elder, (upon
the 10th day of December, in the year 384, being) aged nearly eighty years, and
full of righteousness, truth, and judgment. He was buried beside his mother and
sister in the Church which he had himself founded on the Road to Ardea. His
reliques were afterwards taken to the Basilica of St Lawrence, which is thence sometimes
called San Lorenzo in Damaso.
From the Holy Gospel according to Matthew
Matt 16:13-19
And Jesus came into the quarters of Caesarea
Philippi: and he asked his disciples, saying: Whom do men say that the Son of
man is? But they said: Some John the Baptist, and other some Elias, and others
Jeremias, or one of the prophets. Jesus
saith to them: But whom do you say that I am?
Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art
Christ, the Son of the living God. And
Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh
and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I
say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the
kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound
also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed
also in heaven.
A Homily by St. Leo the Pope
When the Lord, as we read in the Gospel, asked
his disciples who did men, amid their divers speculations, believe him the Son
of Man to be, blessed Peter answered and said: Thou art the Christ, the Son of
the living God. And the Lord answered and said unto him: Blessed art thou,
Simon Bar-Jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my
Father, which is in heaven: and I say also unto thee: That thou art Peter, and
upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it; and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and
whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever
thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. But the dispensation of
truth perdures, and blessed Peter, persevering in the strength of the rock
which he hath received, hath not relinquished the position he assumed at the
helm of the Church.
In
the universal Church it is as if Peter were still saying every day: Thou art
the Christ, the Son of the living God. For every tongue which confesseth the
Lord is taught that confession by the teaching of Peter. This is the Faith that
overcometh the devil and looseth the bonds of his prisoners. This is the Faith
which maketh men free of the world and bringeth them to heaven, and the gates
of hell are impotent to prevail against it. This is the rock which God hath
fortified with such ramparts of salvation, that the contagion of heresy will
never be able to infect it, nor idolatry and unbelief to overcome it. And
therefore, dearly beloved, we celebrate today's festival with reasonable
obedience, that in my humble person he may be acknowledged and honoured who
doth continue to care for all the shepherds as well as sheep entrusted unto
him, and who doth lose none of his dignity even in an unworthy successor.
When,
therefore, we address our exhortations to your godly ears, believe ye that ye
are hearing him speak whose office we are discharging. Yea, it is with his love
for you that we warn you. And we preach unto you no other thing than that which
he taught, entreating you as did he: Gird up the loins of your mind; be sober;
be ye holy in all manner of living; pass the time of your sojourning here in
the fear of God. My disciples, dearly beloved, ye are to me as the disciples of
the Apostle Paul were to him, namely: My crown and joy; if so be that your
faith, abide, still in all lowliness and holiness, like unto the first times of
the Gospel. For although the whole Church, which is in all the world, should
indeed abound in all the virtues, it becometh especially you among all others
to excel in acts of piety, founded as ye be on the very citadel of the
Apostolic Rock ye who have not only been redeemed with the rest of men by our
Lord Jesus Christ, but who have been instructed by the blessed Apostle Peter
far beyond all others.
No comments:
Post a Comment