"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
It’s probably worth mentioning that I’ve created an RSS feed to allow people to subscribe to the St. Ignatius podcasts in iTunes:
If you have problems with this, or don’t use iTunes, simply point your media player software towards:
http://www.trycatch.net/audio/ignatius/IgnatiusOfAntioch.rss
UPDATE 03/16/2015: Please note, this link no longer works.
The final two letters of St. Ignatius which we read are both sent to the city of Smyrna. The first letter is sent to the Church as a whole, the second specifically to their bishop, Polycarp.
This first letter is special for many reasons, but particularly because it contains Ignatius’ clearest declaration of faith about the Eucharist, as well as being the earliest recorded use of the phrase “Catholic Church”. Invented at Nicea? I don’t think so.
Here is my abridged version of the letter:
“St. Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Smyrnaeans” PDF
“St. Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Smyrnaeans” Audio
The Scripture which will be proclaimed at Mass in the upcoming weeks looks at the subject of prayer.
The other day, whilst surfing the Internet, I came across the prayer which I used during my time of preparation prior to receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation. To my surprise, I found that there was an “extra bit” that I had not heard before. Here it is:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever in the next. Amen.
–Reinhold Niebuhr
I think I need this right now.
Ignatius is moving!
Thus far we have been reading the letters this inspirational martyr wrote from the city of Smyrna, but we must now follow him to Troas where he will write his last three letters before completing his journey to Rome and to the mouths of the wild beasts!
Ignatius now addresses the schism and the Judaising attempts at the church in the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia. Here is my abridged version of the letter:
“St. Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Philadelphians” PDF
“St. Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Philadelphians” Audio
This week in the JP2 Group we will be continuing our study of the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch, martyr of the early 2nd Century.
Last week we read his words to the Trallians where Ignatius presents unity with the bishop as a defence against heresy. This week we move on to the letter he wrote to the Ephesians, the community in which Paul lived for three years and to whom he wrote a letter which we find in Sacred Scripture.
In this letter Ignatius pulls together all the different topics we have seen him address in his letters thus far: unity, the episcopacy, heresy, the Eucharist etc. However, as well as being a nice revision of all we have seen thus far, he also gives us some advice on how to deal with those outside the Church.
After looking at several different translations, I have, again, created my own abridged version so that we will be able to complete our study of this letter in a single evening. The letter to the Ephesians is quite long so unfortunately I had to cut quite a bit. Anyway, here it is:
“St. Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Ephesians” PDF
“St. Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Ephesians” Audio
Wow, they just keep coming! Soon there will be published yet another “user friendly” resource for the writings of the Early Church Fathers! I just got the following email from Karl Keating, president of Catholic Answers:
My debate was a beautiful failure. My opponent was Dave Hunt, an inveterate anti-Catholic, a Fundamentalist writer of risible but widely-read books that “exposed” the Catholic Church… Our venue was a large hall near Detroit. The place was packed, chiefly with people who weren’t sympathetic to the points I was trying to make. One such listener was Alex Jones, then pastor of an inner-city Pentecostal church.
Years later, when Steve Ray introduced me to Alex, he said I was responsible for Alex’s conversion to the Catholic faith—but that Alex hadn’t been impressed by a single argument I made during that debate (Ouch!)
This week in the JP2 Group we will be continuing our study of the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch, the third bishop of Antioch. Last week we read his words to the Magnesians where he exhorted them to do nothing without the bishop and to give honour to God by honouring the presbytery in authority over them. This week we move on to the letter he wrote to the Church in Tralles in which Ignatius repeats much of what he told the Magnesians, but goes on to warn them of a heresy which was starting to creep into the Church, Docetism.
After looking at several different translations, I have, again, created my own abridged version so that we will be able to complete our study of this letter in a single evening. Here it is:
“St. Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Trallians” PDF
“St. Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the Trallians” Audio