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The martyrs are our monastic forebears. They were ready to give themselves completely to Christ. And so we celebrate with joy and gratitude this memorial of Saint Ignatius of Antioch. And his words strike us to the heart. He writes to the Christians of Rome, as he prepares to face the beasts in the arena:
All the pleasures of
the world, and all the kingdoms of this earth, shall profit me nothing. It
is better for me to die in behalf of Jesus Christ, than to
reign over all the ends of the earth. For what shall a man be profited, if
he gain the whole world, but lose his own soul? Him I seek, who
died for us: Him I desire, who rose again for our sake. This is the gain which
is laid up for me. Pardon me, brethren: do not hinder me from living,
do not wish to keep me in a state of death; and while I desire to belong
to God,
do not give me over to the world. Allow me to obtain pure light: when I have
gone there, I shall indeed be a man of God. Permit me to be an
imitator of the passion of my God. If anyone has Him within himself,
let him consider what I desire, and let him have sympathy with me, as knowing how I am
straitened. My love has been
crucified, and there is no fire in me desiring to be fed; but there
is within me a water that lives and speaks, saying to me inwardly, Come to
the Father. I have no delight in corruptible food, nor in the pleasures of this
life. I desire the bread of God, the heavenly bread,
the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became
afterwards of the seed of David and Abraham; and I desire the
drink of God,
namely His blood, which is incorruptible love and eternal life.
