About Today
Thursday 11 December 2025
Thursday of the 2nd week of Advent or Saint Damasus I, Pope
Let us adore the Lord, the King who is to come.
Year: A(II). Psalm week: 2. Liturgical Colour: Violet.
Pope St Damasus I (304 - 384)
A Spaniard, he was born about 305. Joining the Roman clergy, he was elected Pope in 366, in calamitous times. He held many synods against heretics and schismatics, but worked to heal divisions within the orthodox Church: for instance, between Rome and Antioch. He promoted the cult of the martyrs, and he got St Jerome to prepare a complete and correct Latin text of the Bible. He himself presided over the Council of Rome in 382, which definitively laid down which books were and were not to be considered to be part of the canon of Scripture. He died in 384 and his remains are preserved in the church of San Lorenzo in Damaso at Rome, which he had had rebuilt.
Saint Theodoret calls Damasus the head of the famous doctors of divine grace of the Latin church. The General Council of Chalcedon called him the “honour and glory of Rome."
Other saints: St Maria Maravillas of Jesus (1891-1974)
11 Dec (where celebrated)
Saint Damasus I, Pope
Gospel: Matthew 11:11-15
At that time: Jesus said to the crowd: ‘Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John and, if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.’
Reflection on the Illuminated Manuscript Page
Today we celebrate Pope Damasus I (305–384). He is one of the great early popes whose decisions shaped the Church in a major way. He became Bishop of Rome at a crucial moment, just after Christianity was legalised by Emperor Constantine and the Church was finding her voice in a changing world. Damasus defended the true faith boldly during the Arian controversy. The Arian controversy was one of the great crises of our early Church. Arius, a priest from Alexandria, taught that Jesus was not fully God, but a created being — higher than humans, but not equal to the Father. This teaching spread rapidly and caused deep division among Christians. Pope Damasus I confronted the issue head-on by firmly upholding the full divinity of Christ. At the Council of Rome in 382, he clearly reaffirmed the teaching of the Council of Nicaea: that the Son is true God from true God, equal to the Father, eternal and consubstantial.
One of Damasus’s further great contributions was his support of St Jerome, whom he commissioned to produce a unified Latin translation of the Scriptures. This translation, known as the Vulgate, became the Bible of the Western Church for more than a thousand years. Thanks to Damasus, generations of Christians were able to hear and pray with one consistent, reliable text of Scripture. We celebrate Pope Damasus during Advent, and this carries a quiet significance. Advent is a season of waiting, preparing, and returning to what is essential. Damasus spent his life helping the Church define what was the essence of the Christian faith: the truth of Christ, the unity of believers, the treasure of the Scriptures, and the witness of the saints.
Our illumination is taken from The Brantwood Bible. The Brantwood Bible is the informal name for a beautiful 13th-century Latin Vulgate Bible. It is a complete medieval Bible, handwritten and illuminated, created at a time when small, portable “Paris Bibles” were becoming popular among scholars and preachers. These small Bible were developed in Paris and were small, portable, containing thin parchment and tiny script. They were the first truly compact complete Bibles designed for study and preaching. The Brantwood Bible manuscript became part of the personal collection of John Ruskin, the great Victorian art critic, writer, and social thinker. Ruskin kept this Bible at his home, Brantwood, in England’s Lake District, hence the name.
Saint Jerome presents the Bible to Pope Damasus I,
Illumination from the Brantwood Bible, (British Library shelfmark BL YT 22),
Historiated initial 'F'(rater) with Jerome and Pope Damasus, at the beginning of the Bible; ownership inscription: '82 Bibliotheca monasterii montis Sancti Eligii' in the lower margin
© British Library, London / Granger, New York
Thursday of the 2nd week of Advent or Saint Damasus I, Pope
Let us adore the Lord, the King who is to come.
Year: A(II). Psalm week: 2. Liturgical Colour: Violet.
Pope St Damasus I (304 - 384)
A Spaniard, he was born about 305. Joining the Roman clergy, he was elected Pope in 366, in calamitous times. He held many synods against heretics and schismatics, but worked to heal divisions within the orthodox Church: for instance, between Rome and Antioch. He promoted the cult of the martyrs, and he got St Jerome to prepare a complete and correct Latin text of the Bible. He himself presided over the Council of Rome in 382, which definitively laid down which books were and were not to be considered to be part of the canon of Scripture. He died in 384 and his remains are preserved in the church of San Lorenzo in Damaso at Rome, which he had had rebuilt.
Saint Theodoret calls Damasus the head of the famous doctors of divine grace of the Latin church. The General Council of Chalcedon called him the “honour and glory of Rome."
Other saints: St Maria Maravillas of Jesus (1891-1974)
11 Dec (where celebrated)
Saint Damasus I, Pope
Gospel: Matthew 11:11-15
At that time: Jesus said to the crowd: ‘Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John and, if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.’
Reflection on the Illuminated Manuscript Page
Today we celebrate Pope Damasus I (305–384). He is one of the great early popes whose decisions shaped the Church in a major way. He became Bishop of Rome at a crucial moment, just after Christianity was legalised by Emperor Constantine and the Church was finding her voice in a changing world. Damasus defended the true faith boldly during the Arian controversy. The Arian controversy was one of the great crises of our early Church. Arius, a priest from Alexandria, taught that Jesus was not fully God, but a created being — higher than humans, but not equal to the Father. This teaching spread rapidly and caused deep division among Christians. Pope Damasus I confronted the issue head-on by firmly upholding the full divinity of Christ. At the Council of Rome in 382, he clearly reaffirmed the teaching of the Council of Nicaea: that the Son is true God from true God, equal to the Father, eternal and consubstantial.
One of Damasus’s further great contributions was his support of St Jerome, whom he commissioned to produce a unified Latin translation of the Scriptures. This translation, known as the Vulgate, became the Bible of the Western Church for more than a thousand years. Thanks to Damasus, generations of Christians were able to hear and pray with one consistent, reliable text of Scripture. We celebrate Pope Damasus during Advent, and this carries a quiet significance. Advent is a season of waiting, preparing, and returning to what is essential. Damasus spent his life helping the Church define what was the essence of the Christian faith: the truth of Christ, the unity of believers, the treasure of the Scriptures, and the witness of the saints.
Our illumination is taken from The Brantwood Bible. The Brantwood Bible is the informal name for a beautiful 13th-century Latin Vulgate Bible. It is a complete medieval Bible, handwritten and illuminated, created at a time when small, portable “Paris Bibles” were becoming popular among scholars and preachers. These small Bible were developed in Paris and were small, portable, containing thin parchment and tiny script. They were the first truly compact complete Bibles designed for study and preaching. The Brantwood Bible manuscript became part of the personal collection of John Ruskin, the great Victorian art critic, writer, and social thinker. Ruskin kept this Bible at his home, Brantwood, in England’s Lake District, hence the name.
Saint Jerome presents the Bible to Pope Damasus I,
Illumination from the Brantwood Bible, (British Library shelfmark BL YT 22),
Historiated initial 'F'(rater) with Jerome and Pope Damasus, at the beginning of the Bible; ownership inscription: '82 Bibliotheca monasterii montis Sancti Eligii' in the lower margin
© British Library, London / Granger, New York