Saturday of the Twenty Eight Week in Ordinary Time. Year II (Memorial of St Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr). Eph. 1:15-23; Luke 12:8-12.
There used to be a program on Dstv’s Sony Max tagged “A thousand ways to die”. The ways depicted were mostly gruesome, and almost always out of ignorance or sheer foolishness. And they’re usually without purpose. In contrast, today we’re looking at deaths that may have seemed ‘foolish’ to non believers but were deliberate and purposeful – Martyrdom. St. Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians in today’s first reading is for “a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you…”
This hope is what led the saints to choose death rather than deny their faith in Jesus Christ. Friends, St. Ignatius was the third Bishop of Antioch, after St Peter and Evodius. After his arrest by the Romans, he was so certain about his choice to die that he begged his followers not to discourage him from being ground like wheat by the teeth of the wild animals. Ignatius of Antioch, like many saints before him, understood the words of Jesus Christ that everyone who acknowledges Him before men, will be acknowledge before the angels of God. Can we do the same?
God bless your day ahead. St Ignatius of Antioch, pray for Us.
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