St Theodore the Studite Nov 12

Saint Theodore of Studis

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.)