Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.   Today we celebrate the memorial of St. Ignatius of Antioch, one of the Apostolic Fathers. He was a convert and a disciple of the Apostle John. He served as Bishop of Antioch for almost 40 years, beginning in 70 AD. The historian Eusebius says that he was the third Bishop of Antioch. The first was St. Peter, the second Evodius. Antioch is also mentioned in the Book of Acts as well. It's in modern-day Turkey and was a major metropolitan area at the time of St. Ignatius. Antioch was the capital of the Roman province of Syria, and it was the second city of the empire, actually.
On his journey to being martyred by lions in the Roman Colosseum, which occurred in 107 AD, Ignatius wrote seven letters to various churches. The letters were so esteemed that they were considered by some at the time to be on par with sacred scripture. The Church later determined that that was not the case, however.
Ignatius' eagerness to die a martyr is a recurring theme in his letters, so much so that he begged the Christians not to intercede with the emperor on his behalf. For example, he wrote to the Romans, he said, "I beg you not to show any unreasonable goodwill towards me. Let me become food for the wild beasts through whose favor it will be granted me to attain to God."  I just want to highlight some of the key themes of his letters, which point to his Catholicity because St. Ignatius' writings scream Catholicism. A famous Protestant pastor in America who passed away a number of years ago used to our radio program. He once said that you have to be very careful when you read the Church Fathers because they are very Catholic. It's quite an interesting confession when you think about it.
St. Ignatius was one of the first witnesses outside of the New Testament that tells us just how Catholic the beliefs of the Church were in the time of the apostles and right after. And keep in mind that he became bishop as the writings of the New Testament were literally hot off the presses. And also remember that the Apostle St. John died right at the end of the first century, so just a few years before St. Ignatius.
In his letter to the Church in Smyrna, we find the earliest surviving written use of the term Catholic Church. Ignatius writes, quote, "Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude also be, even as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church." Right before that he writes this, quote, "See that you all follow the bishop even as Christ Jesus does the Father and the priests as you would the apostles. Reverence the deacons as those who carry out the appointment of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop," unquote.
An issue there that you see that's essential to St. Ignatius's understanding of the Church is the importance of the hierarchy. So the bishops, the priests, and the deacons, and the importance of being in union with the bishop. Where would he have gotten that idea from? The answer is from the apostles themselves, actually.
He writes, for example, to the Church in Ephesus, quote, "It is fitting that you should concur with the will of your bishop, concur with the will of your bishop, which you also do. For your justly renowned presbytery worthy of God is fitted as exactly to the bishop as the strings are to the harp. Therefore, in your concord and harmonious love, Jesus Christ is sung. And man by man, you become a choir that being harmonious in love and taking up the song of God in unison, you may be with one voice, you may with one voice sing to the Father," he says.
So the unity of the Church with the bishop is like the unity of the harp as it's strung.
After recommending to the Smyrnians, he said, "Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop." He confides to the bishop of the Church of Smyrna, St. Polycarp, he said, "Polycarp." He says, "I offer my life for those who are submissive to the bishop, to the presbyters, and to the deacons, and may I, along with them, obtain my portion in God."  So unity with and submission to the bishops are a key aspect of St. Ignatius's ecclesiology, his understanding of what it means to be part of the Church. For him, peace and unity come from being in solidarity with the hierarchy.
A heresy which was prevalent in the time of St. Ignatius was that of docetism which denied that Jesus had taken on a real human body. One of the consequences of this belief was that they denied Jesus's true presence in the Eucharist. Speaking of the docetists, St. Ignatius writes to the believers in Smyrna, he says, "They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, in which the Father in His goodness raised up again. Those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God incur death in the midst of their disputes."  So if you catch that, St. Ignatius is saying that the Eucharist is the flesh of Jesus, which a number of Christians nowadays would deny, but which has always been taught and believed by the Church since the first century.
To the Church in Philadelphia, he writes, "Be zealous then in the observance of one Eucharist, for there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and one chalice that brings union in His blood. There is one altar, as there is one bishop with the priests and deacons who are my fellow workers." Again, the Eucharist is the flesh of Jesus. He's repeating that there.
In his letter to the Ephesians, the Trallians, and Philadelphians, St. Ignatius calls the Church the place of sacrifice. It's a designation that points to the Eucharist as being the sacrifice of the Church.
Another famous writing, the Didache, which was probably written around the time that St. Ignatius became a bishop in 70 AD. The Didache speaks of the Eucharist specifically as a sacrifice, as a thousia, which is the word that's used in the Greek text.
And in his letter to the Romans, St. Ignatius identifies himself with the bread of the Eucharistic sacrifice. "Let me become food for the wild beasts," he writes, "through whose favor it will be granted to me to attain to God. I am the wheat of God, so let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts that I may be found the pure bread of Christ. Pray to Christ for me that by these instruments, by these lions, I may be found a sacrifice to God."  So the understanding that he uses to describe the situation of his own sacrifice and martyrdom is very Eucharistic-centered.
Ignatius's letter to the Church of Rome has a particular coloring in that it's clear that he offers the Church of Rome more of a laudative, more of a solemn greeting in respect to the other letters of the other churches. He demonstrates a deference to the Roman Church, which he doesn't show to the other churches.
He writes this, quote, "Ignatius, who is called Theophorus, to the Church which has found mercy through the majesty of the Most High Father and Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, the Church that is beloved and enlightened, the Church that presides in the capital of the Romans, worthy of God, worthy of honor, worthy of the highest happiness, worthy of praise, worthy of obtaining her every desire, worthy of being deemed holy, the Church that presides in love, named for Christ and from Christ and from the Father," he says.
So a number of patrologists, those who study the Church Fathers, they see Ignatius's words either as a direct or an indirect evidence of the primacy of the Roman see. The phrase presides in love or in agape is said in Quasten's book of patrology to refer not just to charitable giving but to the totality of the supernatural life which Christ entrusted to His Church. And so that phrase presiding in love would refer to the Roman Church's authority to guide and lead in that which constitutes the essence of Christianity and the new order brought into the world by Christ's divine love for us.
And also in his other six letters Saint Ignatius admonishes the Church to unity, but he doesn't do so when he's writing to the Church of Rome. He doesn't presume to issue commands to the Roman community because it has as its authority the princes of the apostles, Peter and Paul. He says, "I do not issue any orders to you as did Peter and Paul. They were apostles. I am a convict," he writes.
So there's something special about the Church of Rome from the beginning, something that Ignatius was aware of and something that those who have hearts and minds open to the truth can actually still see to this day.
So let's ask St. Ignatius and Our Lady today for the reunion of all of God's children into the Church that Christ founded into the Catholic Church. May the Lord grant us the gift of unity which He Himself prayed for at the Last Supper and so deeply desires, a unity which St. Ignatius himself offered his life for.
"I do not pray for these only," Jesus said of the apostles, "but also for those who believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one, even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they may be one in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me," John 17.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.