Ad Jesum per Mariam

History Remembers His Greatness: Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr

History Remembers His Greatness: Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr The Saint we honor today, Saint Ignatius of Antioch, is one of the most remarkable men that history has ever produced. Tradition holds that when the disciples were arguing among themselves about who was the greatest, Jesus sat down and placed a child on His lap. Unless you become one such as this little one, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Tradition says that child who received a kiss from Jesus sitting upon His lap was Ignatius. Ignatius grew in his faith. Hear more within the Homily! Bishop of Antioch Ignatius became the third Bishop of Antioch. The first was St. Peter. Antioch was where the word Christians was first used. He was martyred in approximately the year 110 A.D. He died about 15 or 20 years after the death of St. John, the Apostle. He is one of the earliest witnesses to the early Church. His witness comes down to us by the way he lived the words of today’s scripture passages. Hear more in the Homily! I Am A Christian! When the Romans came upon Antioch, they offered the people . . . pain or pleasure. If you surrender to the Romans, life will be easy and there will be rewards. Ignatius stood before the Roman leaders. Ignatius was asked what type of man stands before the emperor? He said . . . I am a Christian! When asked what was so great about that, Ignatius continued. I have Christ alive in me . . . and you do not! These words led to his martyrdom. He was arrested immediately. Because he spoke in such a manner to the emperor, Ignatius was put to death in Rome . . . in the Coliseum . . . as an example to all. Understand what actually made Saint Ignatius of Antioch such a great man. Listen to: History Remembers His Greatness: Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr ----------------------------- Image: Saint Ignatius of Antioch: Austrian Artist: Leopold Kupelwieser: 1800s ----------------------------- Gospel Reading: Luke: 11: 47-54 First Reading: EPH 1: 1-10

Duration:: 18m
Broadcast on:: 25 Oct 2024
Audio Format:: other

"The Lord be with you," a reading from the Holy Gospel, according to John. Jesus said to his disciples, "A man I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat. But if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. Whoever saves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will myself and be. The Father, who honor whoever saves me." The Gospel of the Lord. The man we celebrate today, Ignatius of Antioch, is one of the most remarkable figures Christian history has produced. The tradition holds that on that day when the disciples were arguing among themselves over who was the greatest, that Jesus found a child and placed that child on his lap, and said, "Unless you become like one such as this one, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." That child was Ignatius. Ignatius grew in the faith. Ignatius was formed in the church of John, the beloved disciple. Ignatius became the third bishop of Antioch where Christians first received that name, the third bishop with St. Peter himself being the first. His martyrdom took place around the year 110 AD, just 15 or 20 years after the death of John the Apostle. He is one of the earliest and most compelling witnesses we have to the faith of the early church, and it is a witness that comes down to us by how he lived the scripture passages that we just heard. We hear St. Paul speaking to the church in Philippi, warning them against the temptation to surrender to the worldliness of the culture around them, that culture out of which they have been called, that culture against which they have been challenged to stand and to uphold something very, very different. And the great temptation that Paul names in this passage from the Philippians is the temptation to give in to worldly luxury, worldly ease, and worldly pleasure. This is something that has afflicted the people of God from the very beginning. One turns to the Lord with faith, one embraces the freedom that God gives, and then one uses that freedom in a misplaced way, where those who have been called out of the world become even more worldly than the world they have left behind. To the extent that as St. Paul says, their God is their belly, their God is their stomach, their pleasure, their appetite, and they live to serve that. And he insists it must not be that way with you. And as the Roman persecution came to the city of Antioch, the emperor trained in himself arriving there. The choice that was put before the believers was not merely life and death. It was pain and pleasure. It will be easy if you give in. It will be easy if you surrender. There will be reward for you if you lay aside your rigor. It wasn't simply a threat of life. It was also a promise of comfort, a promise of ease, a promise of luxury. And it was Ignatius, the bishop, who having guided his church through that period of persecution, strengthening them with his own example who stood before the emperor himself. And the emperor was puzzled by this man, this ordinary man who stood before him who had the might of Rome, the wealth of Rome behind him. And he looked at him and said, "What manner of man are you that you stand before me?" And the answer was, "I am a Christian." And Trajan laughed and said, "And what is so good about that?" And Ignatius' answer was, "I have Christ alive in me. And you do not." Those were the words that won Ignatius his martyrdom. He was arrested immediately. And because he spoke to the emperor so publicly and so forcefully, the emperor decree that he would be transferred to Rome to be put to death in the capital before the Roman citizens as an example to all of the world torn apart by wild beasts in the Colosseum. And so it was, just like Saint Paul was transported to Rome across the Mediterranean Sea so many years earlier, a prisoner and yet one who proclaimed all along the way, the same thing happened with Ignatius. The journey was long and slow and as they moved through the Middle East, Christians came to where Ignatius was being stayed. They met with him, they spoke with him, they learned from him and they took back to their city's letters written by his hand. Just as so many decades earlier, Saint Paul wrote to all of the churches that he founded to strengthen them, to warn them and to encourage them. Ignatius even sent a letter ahead of himself to Rome warning the prominent Christians in Rome that they were not to go to the imperial court and plead for mercy on his behalf because that day he stood before the emperor. He did what Christ had done so many years earlier when he set his face toward Jerusalem to go and give his life on the cross and would let no one dissuade him from the sacrifice that he would offer. Ignatius felt that same life and movement of Christ within him with such an intensity. He knew that martyrdom was his call and he would move toward it and he would witness with his life and with his blood and he would embrace that and not flee from it. And so there's this remarkable movement of this man who knows he is going to be put violently and cruelly to death and yet who knows in this very giving of his life will be a witness that will strengthen the church and so he continues on his way. And the letters then are read in the churches around the Middle East and they're understood that these are the words of a dying man. This is the last great statement of faith of one who heard the apostles speak with their own mouths. This is the one whom Jesus said on his lap and said, "Unless you become like this guy you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." And they read those letters which first insisted on that as the apostles now have passed on from us we must attend to the treasure that they've left, not to add to it or to take from it or to exchange it for some lesser idea or lesser wealth. But rather the full teaching of the apostles must be remembered, must be respected and must be passed on or else we have nothing. And so it is that this one who was himself directly taught by the apostles' demands of the church respect what you've been given. Be not like those people of whom St. Paul is warning the Christians in Philippi who so easily take what they have been given and set it aside carelessly and recklessly for something of little value, for the pleasure of a moment, for the distraction of a few days, but to hold on to it, to value it and to live it. And among all of the things that Christ had given us through the apostles' Ignatius draws attention to the sacrament that we celebrate here on this altar. And he is absolutely insistent that in the bread and the wine of the Eucharistic celebration one meets and experiences Jesus Christ. He is present, truly, personally and fully. And as Ignatius speaks about the presence of Christ in the sacrament, he insists that the fundamental importance of that presence is the way that it unites us to Christ and roots his life within us. It is not simply a presence to be looked at and admired. It is not simply a presence that is there for our consolation or our strengthening. But rather, it is that presence of Christ which roots and strengthens and deepens his life within us. And it is precisely because that is what the Eucharist does. It is also then the Eucharist that renites the believers to one another. And this too is something that is easily overlooked, easily missed, easily neglected. We can make the mistake of privatizing our experience of communion, of privatizing our devotion to the blessed sacrament, of reducing it to Jesus and me. And Ignatius doesn't allow that. And this is from the earliest strain of the witness of the church. Rather precisely because we all receive the one bread, drink from the one cup, and have the one life within us. There is a fundamental oneness that must always be present among us. The clergy united to the laity, the laity that the clergy, all of us united to one another. And the forging of that unity is in this sacrament. And so for Ignatius, the receiving of communion is not merely a matter of I get to receive Jesus. The communion we receive is Christ. And we also receive communion with one another in the sacrament. It is the necessary consequence of the sacrament. There can be for Ignatius no receiving Jesus that doesn't include receiving the other members of his body. Note how powerful that is. Note how disturbing that can be because I may not like the other members of the body. And yet, you guys are part of the deal and you're stuck with me. That's how it works. And it's a remarkable message, a remarkable vision that this is not merely something we do together. This is what is our togetherness. And the unity of the church is given to us here. And we receive that unity every time we receive this sacrament. And for Ignatius, that has consequences because in receiving the life of the Lord who has made himself poor that I might become rich, Ignatius understands that parable of the grain of wheat falling to the ground and dying and yielding forth a rich harvest, he understands wheat is what makes bread. And that bread that is received, that bread which is the very presence of Christ turns me into the wheat of God. And as he moves towards Rome and contemplates what will happen when the beasts of the Colosseum set upon him, he describes himself in exactly that way, I am the wheat of God. I am on the one hand that grain which will fall to the ground and die, but I am also that wheat which must be ground up, that wheat which must be milled, that wheat which must offer itself as bread for the union and the good of the church. And so for Ignatius, the ultimate fruit of the Eucharist in a sense is martyrdom, the ability to become the wheat of God that falls to the ground and dies, that wheat which is the very proof of the bread of life, that wheat which is the fruit of the living bread come down from heaven. And so it is as Jesus moves to his cross and no one can turn him from his way, so Ignatius moves for the offering and the giving of his life and no one will turn him from his path. But as he writes about that, he also speaks of the second great fruit of this sacrament that we celebrate every day. And that is concern for the poor, which again lamentably all too many who glory in the name of Christian want to set aside. I like my Sunday safe, I like my worship neat and clean, and I don't like when it costs me something. And so the term of Saint Paul's warning to the Philippians becomes also the drumbeat of Ignatius' own teaching. It is not enough to simply not surrender to our appetites, it is important to recognize that there are many who have real needs, and those needs must be attended to, and those needs and those lacks must be cared for. And that we who gather and are fed must in fact attend even to the physical feeding of others, that we who are clothed in grace must attend to the clothing of those who have not to wear. And he is not speaking simply in spiritualizing terms, he is speaking very concretely. The Eucharist expresses itself most fully when we are united in charity, toward one another, and toward the least and the wounded in the world around us. We live in a world that wants to put the least and the wounded off to the side as somebody else's problem. And Ignatius writes to the early church, "The nations have always done that. It must not be that way with you." This is the man we celebrate today. This witness from the early church whose voice comes to us only from the seven short letters he left behind. And yet within those brief pages is a depth of witness, a boldness, and a vigor of heart that isn't just a shining light for us, but a challenging example that Christ has left his church for us to aspire to. The old saying is that the blood of the martyrs is the seed from which the church grows, Ignatius is a great example of that. But the witness of the martyrs is not simply something to admire from a distance. The witness of the martyrs is given not just to the world that the gospel is real. The witness of the martyrs is given first to the church, that this is what grace can do in a life, that this is how the gospel can strengthen even the weakest of us into one who is mighty against the force of the world. What a powerful example that is, this old witness who reminds us that there is a fundamentally beautiful boldness at the heart of the Christian faith, a boldness, which is the very boldness of that one who stepped out of heaven, made our weakness his own and made himself poor so that we might become rich, unless the grain of wheat fall to the ground and die. All it is is just a grain of wheat. But should it die, it yields a harvest, 30, 60, even a hundred fold. And what a great thing that is, amen.