Monthly Devotion

February has been traditionally associated with both devotion to the Holy Family and with devotion to the Passion of our Lord.

With the close of Christmastide at Purification and the approach of the sacred season of Lent, the Passion of Christ begins increasingly to capture our attention. Today, in St. Ignatius of Antioch, the Church gives us an excellent instructor of joyous union with the Passion of Christ.

Condemned to martyrdom under Trajan, Ignatius was led in chains to Rome, a march Dr. Parsch refers to as both a nuptial journey and a Way of the Cross. It is the joyous nuptial journey of a soul filled with eager longing to enter the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, and a Way of the Cross, punctuated by seven of the most stirring letters of the early Church characterized by ardent love of Christ and desire to imitate Him in all ways.

Words of St. Ignatius

On his impending martyrdom:

I write to the Churches, and impress on them all, that I shall willingly die for God, unless ye hinder me. I beseech of you not to show an unseasonable good-will towards me. Suffer me to become food for the wild beasts, through whose instrumentality it will be granted me to attain to God. I am the wheat of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ.

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.  Him I seek, who died for us: Him I desire, who rose again for our sake. ... Permit me to be an imitator of the passion of my God. 

On unity:

As children of light and truth, flee from division and wicked doctrines; but where the shepherd is, there do ye as sheep follow.

I...exhort you that ye would all run together in accordance with the will of God. For even Jesus Christ, our inseparable life, is the [manifested] will of the Father; as also bishops, settled everywhere to the utmost bounds, are so by the will of Jesus Christ. Wherefore it is fitting that ye should run together in accordance with the will of your bishop, which thing also ye do. 

Therefore in your concord and harmonious love, Jesus Christ is sung. And do ye, man by man, become a choir, that being harmonious in love, and taking up the song of God in unison, ye may with one voice sing to the Father through Jesus Christ, so that He may both hear you, and perceive by your works that ye are indeed the members of His son. It is profitable, therefore, that you should live in an unblameable unity, that thus ye may always enjoy communion with God.

On prayer:

...love nothing but God only. And pray ye without ceasing in behalf of other men. For there is in them hope of repentance that they may attain to God.

But the Father is faithful in Jesus Christ to fulfill both mine and your petitions: in whom may ye be found unblameable.

Passion of Christ, Strengthen me!