Today is the feast day of St Ignatius of Antioch. He was the bishop of Antioch in Syria and was the second successor of St. Peter. He was a disciple of the apostle St. John, and also met St. Peter, having probably been ordained by him.
During the reign of Emperor Trajan, Ignatius was sentenced to be thrown to the wild beasts. He was transported in chains to his martyrdom in Rome; along the way, he was met by Christians from nearby places. To these friends, he wrote seven letters, six addressed to some Christian communities and one personal letter to Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna. All seven are most beautiful pearls of our early Christian literature.
Prior to his death in the year 110, he wrote a letter to the Ephesians where he highlighted the following four points, which are still relevant to this very day:
1. Christians should lead a coherent life.
Some among you have acquired the vice of going about with the Holy Name on their lips, while they indulge in practices which are an insult to God. These you must avoid as wild beasts; they are rabid dogs that bite in secret. You must beware of them, for they are hard to cure.
It is better to keep silence and be something than to talk and be nothing. Teaching is an excellent thing, provided you practice what you teach.
2. In a prevailing atmosphere of corruption, a Christian should pray and fight to persevere and lead others to Christ.
Pray unceasingly for everyone. There is still hope that they may be converted and find their way to God. By the testimony of your clean lives, offer them an opportunity of becoming your fellow disciples.
Meet their angry outbursts with your gentleness, their boasts with your humility, their contempt with your prayers, their errors with your constancy in the faith, their cruelty with your serenity. Above all, do not try to match their example.
Let us prove ourselves through kindness. Let us strive to follow the Lord’s example and see who among you can suffer greater wrong with patience, who more deprivation, who more contempt. Thus, no weed of the devil will be found among you; and you will persevere in perfect chastity and sobriety, in body and soul, through Jesus Christ.
3. Christ, true God, dwells in the soul of a Christian as in a temple.
You are like stones prepared for a temple of God the Father. You are hoisted to the heights of the edifice by the crane of Jesus Christ, which is the Cross; using for a rope the Holy Spirit.
Your faith is what pulls you up, and charity is the road which leads you to God. And thus you become wayfarers all, carrying God with you, carrying a temple.
Strive for sanctity, celebrate frequently the Eucharist, and praise God. When you do so, the powers of Satan are destroyed, and his attacks are blunted by your fortitude in the faith.
4. A petition for unity.
I am taking the opportunity to urge you to live unity in conformity with the mind of God. For Jesus Christ, our life, without whom we cannot live, is the mind of the Father.
But you, the laity, should form a choir, so that, in harmony of sound through unity of hearts, taking the key note from God, you may sing with one voice through Jesus Christ to the Father. If you do this, he will listen to you and recognize his Son’s melody. He will see from your good works that you are members of his Son. It is then profitable for you to live in perfect unity, so that at all times you may have a share in God.
Let us reflect on these powerful words, and may these lead us to live a complete life in Christ Jesus.
