The Lives of the Saints
1. HIEROMARTYR IGNATIUS
The main celebration of Saint Ignatius is in winter on December 20. On this date, however, is celebrated the transfer of his relics from Rome where he suffered martyrdom, to Antioch where he had previously been a hierarch. When Saint Ignatius was summoned to Rome to answer for his faith before Emperor Trajan, on that long journey he was accompanied by several citizens from Antioch, impelled to this by great love toward their wondrous archpastor. The saint of God, having in no way been willing to renounce the Christian faith, having scorned all the flattery and promises of Emperor Trajan, was condemned to death and cast in the Great Circus before wild beasts. The beasts tore him apart and he gave up his soul to God. Then his companions gathered his bare bones, carried them to Antioch and honorably buried them. But when the Persians seized Antioch in the sixth century, the relics of Saint Ignatius were again returned from Antioch to Rome.
2. HOLY MARTYRS ROMAN, JAMES, PHILOTHEUS, HYPERICHIUS, AVIVUS, JULIAN AND PARIGORIUS
All these suffered for the Lord Jesus Christ at Samosata in the time of Emperor Maximian in the year 297. Philotheus and Hyperichius were nobles, and the rest were youths of distinguished lineage. The pagans killed them with a terrible death, having driven nails into the head of each of them. They suffered honorably and entered into eternal joy.
3. VENERABLE LAURENCE OF THE CAVES
He voluntarily chose the life of reclusion like the earlier recluses, Isaac and Nikita, cautiously guarding himself from demonic delusion, to which these two had at first succumbed. By great abstinence, prayer and contemplation of God he attained a high degree of perfection. From a frightened demon he learned that in the Monastery of the Caves, of one hundred eighteen monks there were thirty of them to whom was given by God authority over evil spirits. He departed to the Lord in the year 1194.
Hymn of Praise
The bitter death of Christ crushed death's sting,
And drove away forever the foolish fear of death.
After Christ rushed a flock of martyrs
Into death—but without fear, and complaint, and cry;
And many rushed into death with joy,
For before death they saw angels and heaven.
Saint Ignatius traveled to Rome,
Along the way he prayed to the living God, prayed—
Like a son who prays to his parent,
That beastly teeth might grind him, grind him!
What he prayed to God, God granted him,
But behold, the ground saint remained alive!
Alive and whole even now at heaven's table
Bread softened by suffering for Christ's—bread.
Saint Ignatius the God-Bearer bold
Through the ages distributes courage to martyrs.
Two sufferings there are, and two can be:
For righteousness, or sins—this cannot be hidden.
Suffering for sins is suffering without hope,
But suffering for righteousness—joy without lamentation.
As light through rain that paints the rainbow
So joy, through tears and through gentle sorrow,
Across the spiritual heaven depicts Paradise and God—
This also strengthens the souls of holy martyrs.
“Two sufferings there are: for righteousness, or sins. Suffering for sins is suffering without hope, but suffering for righteousness—joy without lamentation.”
Reflection
The more a man advances in spiritual knowledge and purification of the heart, the lower appears to him the lowland in which he finds himself, and the higher the height toward which he strives. When a certain spiritual giant lay on his deathbed, and having heard his companions praising him for his great labors, he wept and said: "Children, I have not even made a beginning in the spiritual life." When Saint Ignatius the God-Bearer lay in chains in prison, he wrote to the Ephesians: "I do not command you as if I were someone of importance. Although I am in chains for the name of Jesus Christ, I am not yet perfected in Him. Now I begin to be a disciple, and I speak with you as with a collegium of my teachers."
“The more a man advances in spiritual knowledge and purification of the heart, the lower appears to him the lowland in which he finds himself, and the higher the height toward which he strives.”
Contemplation
Contemplate the Lord Jesus in simplicity of behavior, namely:
1. How He simply associates both with fishermen and with scribes and rulers;
2. How He responds to everyone and enters into the house of whoever calls Him;
3. How through all the simplicity of His behavior there radiates clearly regal nobility.
Homily
on perfection through doing the will of God
My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work (John 4:34)
Behold the saving example which our Savior gives us! He who had such power and authority and wisdom says that He came into the world not to do His own will but the will of His Father, and not to finish His own work but His, yet we, though powerless as a spider's web, constantly assert our own will and some work of our own! Although the Son is equal to the Father, as He also says in another place: I and the Father are one, still the Lord Jesus says that He came into the world to do the Father's will and to finish the Father's work. He says this not to show the smallness of His being before the Father's being, for the being is one, but to show the greatness of His love toward the Father, and to arouse us that from love toward God we might fully adopt His will.
All our misery in this life comes from the fact that we do not carry out the will of Him who also sent us into the world. And we do not carry out His will because we have no love toward Him. For whoever loves someone, does his will. The Lord Himself said: If ye love me, keep my commandments (John 14:15). How could the Lord Jesus manifest His love toward the Father, if not by doing the Father's will? And how can we manifest our love toward the Lord Jesus, crucified for us on the cross, if not by doing His will?
O my brethren, our will is deceptive as a shadow; let us not follow it, lest we perish. But let us follow the will of the man-loving Lord, who alone knows what is best for us.
O Lord, humble and man-loving, teach us to do Thy will. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
“All our misery in this life comes from the fact that we do not carry out the will of Him who also sent us into the world.”