From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   On Avoiding Rash Judgments  (III)   
      
   Old habits are hard to break, and no one is easily weaned from his own   
   opinions; but if you rely on your own reasoning and ability rather   
   than on the virtue of submission to Jesus Christ (Phil.3:21) you will   
   but seldom and slowly attain wisdom. For God wills that we become   
   perfectly obedient to Himself, and that we transcend mere reason on   
   the wings of a burning love for Him.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Bk 1, Ch 14   
      
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   OCT 17 – ST IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH   
    BISHOP, MARTYR, FATHER OF THE CHURCH   
      
   (35-107 AD)   
      
   In a 2007 general audience on St. Ignatius of Antioch, Pope Benedict   
   XVI observed that “no Church Father has expressed the longing for   
   union with Christ and for life in him with the intensity of Ignatius.”   
   In his letters, the Pope said, “one feels the freshness of the faith   
   of the generation which had still known the Apostles. In these   
   letters, the ardent love of a saint can also be felt.”   
      
   Born in Syria in the middle of the first century A.D., Ignatius is   
   said to have been personally instructed – along with another future   
   martyr, Saint Polycarp – by the Apostle Saint John. When Ignatius   
   became the Bishop of Antioch around the year 70, he assumed leadership   
   of a local church that was, according to tradition, first led by Saint   
   Peter before his move to Rome.   
      
   Although St. Peter transmitted his Papal primacy to the bishops of   
   Rome rather than Antioch, the city played an important role in the   
   life of the early Church. Located in present-day Turkey, it was a   
   chief city of the Roman Empire, and was also the location where the   
   believers in Jesus’ teachings and his resurrection were first called   
   “Christians.”   
      
   Ignatius led the Christians of Antioch during the reign of the Roman   
   Emperor Domitian, the first of the emperors to proclaim his divinity   
   by adopting the title “Lord and God.” Subjects who would not give   
   worship to the emperor under this title could be punished with death.   
   As the leader of a major Catholic diocese during this period, Ignatius   
   showed courage and worked to inspire it in others.   
      
   After Domitian’s murder in the year 96, his successor Nerva reigned   
   only briefly, and was soon followed by the Emperor Trajan. Under his   
   rule, Christians were once again liable to death for denying the pagan   
   state religion and refusing to participate in its rites. It was during   
   his reign that Ignatius was convicted for his Christian testimony and   
   sent from Syria to Rome to be put to death.   
      
   Escorted by a team of military guards, Ignatius nonetheless managed to   
   compose seven letters: six to various local churches throughout the   
   empire (including the Church of Rome), and one to his fellow bishop   
   Polycarp who would give his own life for Christ several decades later.   
      
   Ignatius’ letters passionately stressed the importance of Church   
   unity, the dangers of heresy, and the surpassing importance of the   
   Eucharist as the “medicine of immortality.” These writings contain the   
   first surviving written description of the Church as “Catholic,” from   
   the Greek word indicating both universality and fullness.   
      
   One of the most striking features of Ignatius’ letters, is his   
   enthusiastic embrace of martyrdom as a means to union with God and   
   eternal life. “All the pleasures of the world, and all the kingdoms of   
   this earth, shall profit me nothing,” he wrote to the Church of Rome.   
   “It is better for me to die in behalf of Jesus Christ, than to reign   
   over all the ends of the earth.”   
      
   “Now I begin to be a disciple,” the bishop declared. “Let fire and the   
   cross; let the crowds of wild beasts; let tearings, breakings, and   
   dislocations of bones; let cutting off of members; let shatterings of   
   the whole body; and let all the dreadful torments of the devil come   
   upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ.”   
      
   St. Ignatius of Antioch bore witness to Christ publicly for the last   
   time in Rome’s Flavian Amphitheater, where he was mauled to death by   
   lions. “I am the wheat of the Lord,” he had declared, before facing   
   them. “I must be ground by the teeth of these beasts to be made the   
   pure bread of Christ.” His memory was honored, and his bones   
   venerated, soon after his death around the year 107.   
      
   “Take care to do all things in harmony with God, with the bishop   
   presiding in the place of God, and with the presbyters in the place of   
   the council of the apostles, and with the deacons, who are most dear   
   to me, entrusted with the business of Jesus Christ, who was with the   
   Father from the beginning and is at last made manifest.”--Letter to   
   the Magnesians 2, 6:1   
      
   “There is one Physician who is possessed both of flesh and spirit;   
   both made and not made; God existing in flesh; true life in death;   
   both of Mary and of God; first passible and then impassible, even   
   Jesus Christ our Lord.” --Letter to the Ephesians, ch. 7, shorter   
   version, Roberts-Donaldson translation   
      
   He stressed the value of the Eucharist, calling it a “medicine of   
   immortality” (Ignatius to the Ephesians 20:2). The very strong desire   
   for bloody martyrdom in the arena, which Ignatius expresses rather   
   graphically in places, may seem quite odd to the modern reader. An   
   examination of his theology of soteriology shows that he regarded   
   salvation as one being free from the powerful fear of death and thus   
   to bravely face martyrdom.   
      
   “Be not seduced by strange doctrines nor by antiquated fables, which   
   are profitless. For if even unto this day we live after the manner of   
   Judaism, we avow that we have not received grace … If then those who   
   had walked in ancient practices attained unto newness of hope, no   
   longer observing Sabbaths but fashioning their lives after the Lord’s   
   day, on which our life also arose through Him and through His death   
   which some men deny … how shall we be able to live apart from Him? …   
   It is monstrous to talk of Jesus Christ and to practise Judaism. For   
   Christianity did not believe in Judaism, but Judaism in   
   Christianity.”--Ignatius to the Magnesians 8:1, 9:1-2, 10:3, Lightfoot   
   translation.   
      
   He is also responsible for the first known use of the Greek word   
   katholikos (καθολικός), meaning “universal”, “complete” and   
   “whole” to   
   describe the church, writing:   
      
   “Wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be; as wherever   
   Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful to   
   baptize or give communion without the consent of the bishop. On the   
   other hand, whatever has his approval is pleasing to God. Thus,   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)