November 12
SAINT THEODORE THE STUDITE, abbot
Optional Memorial
Entry antiphon (Ps 15: '5-6).
You, Lord, are my portion and cup,
you restore my inheritance to me;
the way of life you
have marked out for me .
has made my heritage glorious.
Opening Prayer
Lord’
by your holy abbot Theodore
you have endorsed the order and charm of the cenobitic way of life, .
grant, we pray,
that with him to support 'and inspire us,
we may reproduce by our forbearance the pattern of Christ's sufferings
and merit to be sharers with him in his kingdom,
where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, ·
God, forever and ever.
Prayer over the Gifts
Most merciful God
in Saint Theodore ,you put an end to the old, sinful humanity,
and created instead a new humanity in your own image.
Create in us a new life like his,
so that we may become worthy to
offer you this sacrifice of our redemption.
Through Christ, our Lord.
Communion antiphon (See Mt 19: 27-29)
I assure you who left all and followed me:
you will receive a hundredfold in return,
and inherit eternal life.
Prayer.after Communion
Almighty God,
by the power of this
sacrament you have given, us new strength.
Teach us, like Saint Theodore,
always to set our hearts on you above all,
and to grow into the likeness of Jesus Christ:
who lives and reigns forever
and ever.
A Reading about St Theodore the Studite
by Donald. Attwater
Theodore the Studite was born in
Constantinople in 759 and died on November 11th, 826. He was without question
one of the greatest of the Byzantine monks.
St Theodore stands out as a champion of the
Church's independence from the State in spiritual matters, as a defender of the
legitimacy of sacred images, and as a monastic reformer of genius. In this
last respect his influence is very much alive today. Many of his writings have come
down to us, including over 5 hundred letters, sermons, and a number of hymns.
Like the life of the saint, they are marked with that rigorism and
uncompromising detachment from the world, almost amounting to a 'puritanism,' which
was characteristic of many of his followers, and in some of his successors was so
exaggerated as gravely to disturb the 'Church's peace.
However, there was a less rigid side to
his character, as may be seen In some of his letters to private individuals and
about personal concerns. There have at all times been monks who look on the
secular state of the ordinary Christian with something almost amounting to
contempt, as a way of life permitted to man on account of his weakness, instead
of what it is, the normal way of life ordained by God for mankind. Not so St
Theodore. He set a very high value on domestic life, and knew that holiness was
not confined to the cloister. He wrote to a layman: ' These things that I have
mentioned are the things that pertain to the true Christian, and do not
imagine, Sir, that they are only the concern of monks: they are most strictly
enjoined on monks but they are the concern equally of the laity at large — except,
of course, celibacy and voluntary poverty, and there are times for abstinence
and rules for self-denial regarding even these.'
And to another: 'Every Christian ought
to be as it were a reproduction of Christ, related to him as the branch is to
the vine or a bodily member to the head.' To a man who had lost his third child
he wrote: 'It is sad for you, most sad. But it is far from being so for those
who have been taken at so young an age that they were untouched by sin; theirs
is a blessed and perfect life In the bosom of Abraham, where they glorify God with
sweet song in company with the Holy Innocents and all the other Christ bearing
children’ ...
Saints
of the East , (The Catholic Book Club, London, 1963. Adapted from pp. 98-100.)
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