The Martyrdom of Ignatius of Antioch

The year was 107 AD and Theophorus (“Bearing God” in greek(1)) stood calmly and joyfully at the entrance to the floor of the Flavian Amphitheater. He was about to fulfill a desire held deep in his heart for more than 20 years. He was not only about to demonstrate to the citizens of Rome his undying love for his Lord and savior Jesus Christ, but he was about enter into “...a more deep and intimate relationship with the Lord.”(2) Theophorus, known today as Ignatius of Antioch, was about to be martyred in the Roman Colosseum on account of his unbreakable love for Jesus.

He came close before during the persecution of Christians by emperor Domitian, the self-proclaimed “Lord and God”(3) who compelled citizens to recognize him as such. Christians, Ignatius being one of them, were willing to die rather than place the emperor on par with Jesus, who they knew to be the one true God and many earned the crown of martyrdom. The Domitian persecution ended, but for Ignatius, it was a bittersweet victory. As the successor of Bishop Evodius, Ignatius was the third Bishop of Antioch. As Bishop and shepherd, Ignatius was joyful and relieved that God’s sheep, entrusted to him by Peter the Apostle(4), would no longer suffer persecution. Yet he still longed for the crown of martyrdom and the intimate relationship with his Lord and Savior that accompanied it.

It appeared now to Ignatius that Jesus’ words, “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” (Matt 7:7) were going to be demonstrated. Before he left on his journey to Rome and martyrdom, the Emperor Trajan visited the city of Antioch and discovered Christians refusing to offer sacrifice to the pagan Gods. The emperor called their leader, Bishop Ignatius, to answer for these transgressions. Trajan seeing the resolute nature of the Antiochan Christian leader declared,

“We command that Ignatius, who affirms that he carries about within him Him that was crucified, be bound by soldiers, and carried to the great [city] Rome, there to be devoured by the beasts, for the gratification of the people.” 

To which Ignatius cried out to God,

“I thank you, O Lord, that You have vouchsafed to honour me with a perfect love towards You, and have made me to be bound with iron chains, like Your Apostle Paul.”(5) 

From there he began his travels to Rome to fulfill his utmost desire. The journey was long, but he had the opportunity along the way to minister to Christians throughout the Empire. From the port of Seleucia in Syria, he headed to either Tarsus or Attalia. From there he traveled overland through Asia Minor and through Philadelphia, Sardis, and Smyrna, home to Polycarp, a fellow auditor Saint John the Apostle. From there he sent letters to the congregations of Ephesus, Magnesia, and Tralles encouraging them to follow their Bishop and avoid heresy. He also wrote to the citizens of Rome asking them not to act to prevent his martyrdom. Leaving there his party passed through Troas where he sent letters to the Christians of Philadelphia and Smyrna, and to Polycarp. From here they continued on by sea and land until they arrived in Rome where soon after his arrival Ignatius won his long-coveted crown of martyrdom in the Flavian amphitheater.(6)


Almighty ever-living God,
who adorn the sacred body of your Church
with the confessions of holy Martyrs,
grant, we pray,
that, just as the glorious passion of Saint Ignatius of Antioch,
which we celebrate today,
brought him eternal splendor,
so it may be for us unending protection.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.(7)

Painting of Ignatius of Antioch from
the Menologion of Basil II (c. 1000 AD)

________________________________________________________

(1) Church History, Fr. John Laux p 49

(2) The Martyrdom of Ignatius. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0123.htm. Ch 1.

(3) Scannell, Thomas. "Domitian." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 5. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. 22 Jan. 2017. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05114b.htm.

(4) O'Connor, John Bonaventure. "St. Ignatius of Antioch." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 7. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 22 Jan. 2017. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07644a.htm. 

(5) The Martyrdom of Ignatius, Ch 2

(6) “St. Ignatius of Antioch”, The Catholic Encyclopedia

(7) Liturgy of the Hours, Collect for the feast of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, October 17th.

A Moral Evaluation of Nuclear Deterrence

Living an Integrated Life as an Example to Others

In Lumen Gentium Chapter V, in what is known as the Universal Call to Holiness, the council fathers declared... 

“All in the Church, whether they belong to the hierarchy or are cared for by it, are called to holiness. … The followers of Christ … have been made sons of God in the baptism of faith and partakers of the divine nature, and so are truly sanctified … It is therefore quite clear that all Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of love, and by this holiness a more human manner of life is fostered also in earthly society”

A few paragraphs earlier,the fathers made it clear that we, as the laity, share in the Church’s mission as priests, prophets and kings when they stated...

“By baptism [the members of the Church, including lay people] are incorporated into Christ, are placed in the People of God, and in their own way share the priestly, prophetic and kingly office of Christ, and to the best of their ability carry on the mission of the whole Christian people in the Church and in the world” [emphasis added]

We, the laity, along with members of the clergy, are called to fulfill Jesus’ command to make disciples of all nations. It is our role as catechists to not only make disciples ourselves, but to also teach our students how both be disciples and make disciples themselves. 

Unfortunately, we live in a culture which poses particular obstacles to that mission. We live in a time in which many of us have a split between the faith we profess and the way we live our daily lives. The council fathers in Gaudium et Spes 43 said this, “...deserves to be counted among the more serious errors of our age.” Therefore, we, as catechists, must provide those under our tutelage the tools to break down this ill conceived barrier between our faith and daily life.

Randy Hain, in his article, Six Practical Ideas for Integrating our Catholic Faith with Work, provides some great tools we and our students can use in our everyday lives to help answer Jesus’ call to “Go and make disciples of all nations...”

His article begins by highlighting the need to go out into the workplace and evangelize those around us. He points out that this does not consist of running Bible studies at work or loudly evangelizing our co-workers. While Bibles studies are good things, we are more effective evangelizers in the work place by making it known we are Catholics and living a life of faithful holiness and a being light of Christ to those around us. 

Three Obstacles to an Integrate Life

After his introduction, Mr. Hain, identifies three obstacles to integrating our faith into our daily work lives. 

The first obstacle is our tendency to compartmentalize our lives. Many people have their “faith life”, their “home life”, their “work life” and never shall any of them meet. But that is not what God calls us to do. He calls us to be fully Catholic, all of the time. 

The second obstacle is our time. We often view our relationship with Jesus as another event in the day. What we should be doing is adding everything else around our relationship with Him. He should be the center of our day. 

The third obstacle is our refusal to surrender our lives to Jesus. If we surrender our lives to him the first two obstacles are easily overcome. Instead of surrender, we want to, like Adam and Eve in the garden, have it our way.

Six Practical Ideas to an Integrated Life

After identifying the obstacles, Mr. Hain, moves on to provide six practical things we can do to integrate our faith into our everyday lives. Those six are:

1. Devote one hour of each day to prayer and reading.

2. Devote more time to the Eucharist.

3. Be a light for Christ.

4. Let love drive our actions.

5. Practice active stewardship.

6. Start with the end in mind.

I strongly recommend you read his article to see how these can be put into action.

If we really want to follow Jesus’ call to make disciples, we have to go out into the world and do it. One of the best mindsets we can have to accomplish this is to recognize that God gives each of us talents. By using our God given talents, we allow Him the opportunity to put us where He needs us most. Randy Hain’s article helps us down the path of using our talents and with the grace of the Holy Spirit, help us to show those around us the merciful love of the Father and ultimately to bring souls to Him.  

Obedience

As taught to us by Jonah

This is a video I created for a class I'm taking. It had it's genesis in England one day when my wife and I were driving out to the Westminster Youth Retreat Center, SPEC. We were on our way to attend mass with their community and my wife asked what the readings were. So I told her the story of Jonah. She laughed.

"Lord, Teach us to Teach"

What are we to do?

Something we as catechists need to address when embarking on our ministry is not only the question of what we are to teach but more importantly what God wants us to accomplish. What is our ultimate goal as a catechist when engaging those we catechize? 

We could provide our students with all sorts of information, after all the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the “sure norm for teaching” the Deposit of Faith, is made up of 2,865 articles. Sacred Scripture is made up of 73 books, over 1300 chapters and more than 35,000 verses. Add to Sacred Scripture our Sacred tradition which is made up of the writings of 266 Popes, numerous saints and the fathers of the church, and one finds more than a lifetime worth of knowledge to pass on to our students. But knowledge will not bring our students far enough. That is why in the General Directory For Catechesis the Church tells us...

Truly, to help a person encounter God, which is the task of the catechist, means to emphasize above all the relationship that the person has with God so that he can make it his own and allow himself to be guided by God.[1]

Our goal is clear...It is to help our students encounter the living God. But the question now is, how do we do that? 

Let us turn to our Mother, the Church for that answer.

The Pedagogy of God

Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear.[2]

God incarnated Himself and became man. In becoming man, Jesus shows us the way to be fully and perfectly human. With that understanding as a basis, we can understand when the Church uses the term Pedagogy of God, she means that we should teach as God teaches and do so with the same end in mind. That end is the revelation of God’s love and His salvific work to restore man to Himself.

In the Old Testament God reveals Himself as a loving father through His works and deeds, through the covenants and promises and through the laws and prophets. He incarnates Himself as Jesus Christ in the fullness of time and we hear from the authors of the Gospels, Jesus’ revelation of the Father. In the age of the Church, the Holy Spirit rules and guides the Church so that she may effectively reveal God to man.[3]

It is this threefold pedagogy of revelation that makes God known to man and accomplishes the guiding of man to God. We as catechists must therefore not rely on our own created methods of instruction. While modern educational theories may be used to assist us instructing, they can not be the guiding principle behind our catechesis. The guiding principle of our catechesis must be rooted in faith in God’s Divine Pedagogy, for He is the only one that can bring man to Himself. We are just the ones who point our students to Him. 

To point our students toward Jesus, we must look to Him to guide our action. He gives us this guidance when we turn to the Gospels. By prayerfully reading and meditating on His encounters with man we can learn from Him they way to guide souls to God. Looking to the Gospel of John in Chapter 15 we see that an important aspect of His pedagogy is establishing a bond of friendship with His apostles. He says, “I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”[4] It is this bond of friendship we must build with our students to gain their trust so that we may lead them to Jesus. Without that bond of trust and friendship they will not follow us to Him. 

In Luke 11 we see Jesus teaching the apostles to pray.[5] We too must teach our students to pray, because it is in prayer that we encounter God’s desire for us. Reflecting on the encounter of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, the Church recognizes that prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours.[6]

There is a wealth of guidance we can glean from the Gospels. Therefore, if we desire to be effective catechists we must be students of the gospels. We must spend time prayerfully reading the life of our Lord. 

Go and make disciples.

The making of disciples, should be the goal of every catechist. It is the task given to the apostles by Jesus prior to His Glorious Ascension. It is the charge that the apostles passed on to their successors the bishops who have handed that role on down through the centuries. And it is our role as lay catechists to support the Bishops in answering that call of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Church has given us the way to answer that call and that way is the Pedagogy of God.

Notes

¹ General Directory for Catechesis(GDC) 139

² Gaudium et Spes 22

³ GDC 139-142

⁴ Gospel of John 15:15

⁵ Gospel of Luke 11:1-2

⁶ Catechism of the Catholic Church 2560

Cohabitation and the Effect on Marriage
The Formative Nature of Sin

Virtue and Sin: Forces in Opposition

Virtue and Sin
Forces In Opposition


Sin:
"An offense against God as well as a fault against reason, truth, and right conscience. Sin is a deliberate thought, word, deed, or omission contrary to the eternal law of God. In judging the gravity of sin, it is customary to distinguish between mortal and venial sins." 
Taken from the glossary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church




Virtue:
"A habitual and firm disposition to do the good. The moral virtues are acquired through human effort aided by God’s grace; the theological virtues are gifts of God."
Taken from the glossary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.



Many people view Sin and Virtue to be opposites of each other. But the opposition posed between them is deeper and more important than simply two opposite sides of a coin like good and evil. It is that notion and how virtue leads us away from sin that I intend to explore in this post on Sin and Virtue.

The Reproductive Nature of Sin

Sin, by its nature, reproduces and reinforces itself. When man makes a choice, he makes himself to be a person who chooses such an action. Therefore, if a man chooses a sinful act such as theft, he becomes a thief. This aspect of sin is more than merely one of defining or classifying a person by their actions, but rather it is a modification of who and what the person is becoming. 

Through repeated sinful acts, man engenders in himself a disposition to vice. Once that vice has taken root in man's being, it creates in him perverse inclinations. These perverse inclinations result in a clouded conscience and a lessened ability to judge the difference between good and evil. This lessened capacity for discernment of the good results in poor choices which result in sinful acts, which we see is the source of the disposition to vice and the cycle continues in a downward spiral away from the good and away from a participation in the love of God and the love of neighbor.

How do we stop this downward spiral that takes us away from God? 


The Importance of Virtue to the Christian Moral Life

Saint Gregory of Nyssa tells us ...

"The goal of a virtuous life is to become like God." 

... and Saint Thomas Aquinas tells us ...

"Through virtuous living, man is further ordained to a higher end, which consists in the enjoyment of God."

If sin takes us away from God, virtue directs us toward God.

Unlike sin, virtue forms in us firm attitudes, stable dispositions and habitual perfections of the intellect and will. Through a life of virtue we turn towards God not away from God. The Baltimore Catechism tells us that we are made by God to know, love and serve Him. To accomplish that purpose that we must live a life of virtue.

It is virtue that provides a counter to the downward spiral that is the consequence of sin. Let us look at two ways virtue helps us with the battle against sin.


Pride vs. Humility

Pride turns us in on ourself. We want to determine the meaning of our life. It makes us the master of our own little part of the world. But when we turn to humility we open ourselves up to the divine plans of God, He who knows what is best for us. And in turning to God we say "Thy will be done" instead of "My will be done"





Chastity vs. Lust

Many people think that the virtue in opposition to Lust is Puritanism, but this can not be further from the truth. Puritanism, while opposite of lust, is not the solution. Lust is the use of another human being as the means to ones sexual pleasure. Puritanism helps prevent against this but in doing so it views the other as something contrary to the good. The real virtue that opposes Lust is the virtue of Chastity. Chastity is the perfect expression of sexuality, one that is ordered to the profound respect of the other.



Virtue and Grace


"Human virtues acquired by education, by deliberate acts and by a perseverance ever-renewed in repeated efforts are purified and elevated by divine grace. With God’s help, they forge character and give facility in the practice of the good. The virtuous man is happy to practice them." (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1810)

Grace finds its source in Jesus' once an for all sacrifice on Calvary. Grace is God's free and unmerited gift to man which allows us to live a virtuous life and through that break the downward spiral that results from sin.



"...where sin increased, grace abounded all the more"
- Romans 5:20