St. Ignatius of Antioch
October 17, 2018
CollectOur Lady of Lourdes, Bethesda, Md.
Our 1st reading
ended with these words from St. Paul: “Those
who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their flesh with its passions and
desires. If we live in the Spirit, let
us also follow the Spirit” (Gal 5:25).
The saint whom we
honor today lived those words. The
Collect spoke of “the confessions of holy martyrs.” Confessions
here doesn’t mean the sacrament of Reconciliation but “testimony” or “praise of
God.” In the case of the martyrs—like
Ignatius of Antioch—it’s the public testimony of their love of God even to the
point of giving up their lives rather than deny Jesus Christ or worship an idol
or the Roman State.
The Collect refers
specifically to “the glorious passion of St. Ignatius,” i.e., his suffering and
death, which “brought him eternal splendor,” i.e., a share in the eternal glory
of the risen Lord Jesus—and even a commemoration among the saints named in the
1st Eucharistic Prayer.
Ignatius gives a
twofold public testimony to Christ, thru his writings and thru his
martyrdom. He is one of those early Christian
authors whom we call Fathers of the Church because of the doctrine and
inspiration they put into writing—one of the very 1st of those Fathers, and
likely one who knew personally some of the apostles. He was bishop of Antioch, the ancient Syrian
city often mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, perhaps the most important
city in the Empire after Rome. (It’s now
located in southernmost Turkey.) He was
arrested as a Christian leader and transported to Rome for trial and execution
by being thrown to wild beasts in the Coliseum in 107 A.D.
On his way to
Rome, his ship made port calls along the coast of Asia Minor (modern Turkey)
and he was able to visit with the bishops and other faithful of the ancient
churches there such as Ephesus and Smyrna, and subsequently he penned letters
to them, 6 of which have survived, plus one that he wrote to the Christians of
Rome in advance of his arrival. In them
he expresses his longing to be completely united with Jesus Christ thru his
death, echoing those words of St. Paul that I cited. He calls himself wheat that’s waiting to be
ground by the teeth of the beasts “so that I may become Christ’s pure bread”—words
that will be quoted in the Communion Antiphon.
He continues, “I prefer death in Christ Jesus to power over the farthest
limits of the earth.” He pleads with the
Christians of Rome “not to stand in the way of my birth to real life…. My desire is to belong to God. Only [so] can I be fully a human being.”
Thus his desire
for a complete union with God thru Jesus Christ. Union or unity is the other main topic of his
letters. Bishops must maintain a union
with God the Father and with Christ his Son thru the sound doctrine they teach,
most particularly that the Son truly took on our human flesh, died, and rose in
that flesh for our salvation. Priests,
deacons, and faithful must maintain union with the bishop in what he teaches
and in public worship. There’s only one
Church of Christ—Ignatius is the 1st author to call it the Catholic Church, the
universal Church. There’s one faith
handed on from Christ, and one altar around which the local Church worships
with its bishop.
Our Collect prayed
that “the glorious passion of St. Ignatius of Antioch, which we celebrate today
… may be for us unending protection.”
His passion for Christ in life and in death is a message for us: for adherence to true doctrine in Christ’s
Catholic Church, for unity around our bishop (which doesn’t mean ignoring a
bishop’s failings), for regular, faithful worship in communion with our bishop
(no longer possible in a regular physical presence in our large dioceses), and
finally, for putting Christ in the 1st place in our lives, above any earthly passions
and desires.
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