Daybreak

Thursday of the First Week of Advent Optional Memorial of St. John Damascene, 676-749; spent most of his life in the Monastery of Saint Sabas near Jerusalem, and all of his life under Muslim rule, indeed protected by it; famous for his writings against the iconoclasts, for his treatise, "Exposition of the Orthodox Faith," and for being one of the two greatest poets of the Eastern Church Office of Readings and Morning Prayer for 12/4/25 Gospel: Matthew 7:21, 24-27