February 1st - St. Ignatius of Antioch and St. Brigid of Ireland

[Elizabeth]

Saint Ignatius of Antioch
Bishop and Martyr
(† 107)

Saint Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, was the disciple of Saint John the Evangelist. Believing that the Church on earth should resemble that of the heavenly Jerusalem of which Saint John wrote in his Apocalypse, he established singing in choirs in his church at Antioch, after a vision of the celestial choirs who sang in that manner. When the emperor Domitian persecuted the Church, Saint Ignatius obtained peace for his own flock by fasting and prayer, although for his own part he desired to suffer with Christ, and to prove himself a perfect disciple.

The Roman emperors often visited Antioch, one of the cities of first importance of the empire. In 107, the eighth year of the reign of the emperor Trajan, he came to Antioch and forced the Christians to choose between apostasy and death. Saint Ignatius, who had already governed that church for forty years, continued to fortify it against apostasy, and did not flee. Arrested and brought before the emperor, the latter addressed him: Who are you, poor devil, to set our commands at naught? Call not poor devil, Ignatius answered, one who bears God within him. And when the emperor asked him what he meant by that, Ignatius explained that he bore in his heart Christ, crucified for his sake. Change your ideas, and I will make you a priest of the great Jupiter, and you will be called father' by the Senate. What could such honors matter to me, a priest of Christ, who offer Him every day a sacrifice of praise, and am ready to offer myself to Him also? To whom? To that Jesus who was crucified by Pontius Pilate? Yes, and with whom sin was crucified, and the devil, its author, vanquished.

The questions and the courageous replies continued for a time that day and also on the following one. Saint Ignatius said, I will not sacrifice; I fear neither torments nor death, because I desire to go quickly to God. Thereupon the emperor condemned him to be torn to pieces by wild beasts in Rome. Saint Ignatius blessed God, who had so honored him, binding him in the same chains as Paul, His apostle. When his people wept, he told them to place their hope in the sovereign Pastor, who never abandons His flock. On passing through the city of Smyrna, he exhorted the faithful, who were grieved at his fate, to remain true to Christ until death, and he gave some of them who were going to Rome a letter for the Christians of the capital of the Christian world. This letter is still extant. He writes: I fear your charity, I fear you have an affection too human for me. You might prevent me from dying, but by so doing, you would oppose my happiness. Suffer me to be immolated while the altar is ready; give thanks to God... If when I arrive among you I should have the weakness to seem to have other sentiments, do not believe me; believe only what I am writing to you now. This letter of Saint Ignatius has encouraged all generations of Christians in their combats.

He journeyed to Rome, guarded by soldiers, and with no fear but of losing the martyr's crown. Three of his disciples, who accompanied him and were eyewitnesses of the spectacle, wrote the acts of his martyrdom: His face shining with joy, he reassured them as the lions were released, saying: I am the wheat of Christ, I will be ground by the teeth of the beasts and made into flour to be a good bread for my Lord Jesus Christ! He was devoured by lions in the Roman amphitheater. The wild beasts left nothing of his body except a few bones, which were reverently treasured at Antioch until their removal in the year 637 to the Church of Saint Clement in Rome. After the martyr's death, several Christians saw him in vision, in prayer to Christ, and interceding for them.

Saint Bridgid
Abbess and Patroness of Ireland
(436-523)

Next to the glorious Saint Patrick, Saint Bridgid, whom we may regard as his spiritual daughter in Christ, has ever been held in singular veneration in Ireland. She was born about the year 453, at Fochard in Ulster. During her infancy, her pious father saw in a vision men clothed in white garments pouring a sacred unguent on her head, thus prefiguring her future sanctity. While still very young, Bridgid consecrated her life to God, bestowed everything at her disposal on the poor, and was the edification of all who knew her.

Saint Bridgid was very beautiful, and fearing that efforts might be made to induce her to break the vow by which she had bound herself to God, she prayed that she might become ugly and deformed. Her prayer was heard, for her eye became swollen, and her whole countenance so changed that she was allowed to follow her vocation in peace, and marriage with her was no more thought of. When about twenty years old, our Saint made known to the nephew and disciple of Saint Patrick, Saint Mel, her intention to live only for Jesus Christ, and he consented to receive her sacred vows. On the appointed day, the solemn ceremony of her profession was performed according to the manner introduced by Saint Patrick, the bishop offering up many prayers, and investing Bridgid with a snow-white habit, and a cloak of the same color. While she bowed her head on this occasion to receive the veil, a miracle of a singularly striking and impressive nature occurred: The section of the wooden platform adjoining the altar on which she knelt, recovered its original vitality and put on all its former verdure, retaining it for a long time afterwards. At the same moment Bridgid's eye was healed, and she became beautiful once again.

Encouraged by her example, several other young persons made vows, and in compliance with the wish of the parents of her new associates, the Saint agreed to found a religious residence for all of them in the vicinity. When a site was chosen by the bishop, a convent, the first in Ireland, was erected upon it; and in obedience to the prelate Bridgid assumed the superiority. Her reputation for sanctity became greater every day; and in proportion as it was diffused throughout the country, the candidates for admission into the new monastery increased in number. The bishops of Ireland, soon perceiving the important advantages which their own dioceses would derive from such foundations, persuaded the young and saintly abbess to visit different parts of the kingdom, and, when an opportunity was offered, they introduced branches of her institute everywhere.

While she was in the province of Connaught, a deputation arrived from Leinster to solicit the Saint to take up her residence in that territory; the prospect of the many spiritual advantages which would result induced her to accede to their wishes. Taking with her a number of her spiritual daughters, she journeyed to Leinster, where they were received with many demonstrations of respect and joy. At the site on which Kildare now stands, Saint Bridgid and her companions took up residence. Bridgid contrived out of their small means to relieve the poor of the vicinity very considerably; and when the wants of these indigent persons surpassed her slender finances, she did not hesitate to sacrifice for them the movables of the convent. On one occasion, imitating the burning charity of Saint Ambrose and other great servants of God, she sold some of the sacred vestments in order to procure the means of relieving their necessities. The renown of Bridgid's unbounded charity drew multitudes of the poor to Kildare; the fame of her piety attracted to the region many persons anxious to solicit her prayers or to profit by her holy example.

In time the number of her followers and admirers increased so greatly that it became necessary to provide accommodation for them in the neighborhood of the new monastery, and thus were laid the foundations of the town of Kildare. There an episcopal see was erected, which eventually became the ecclesiastical metropolis of the province to which it belonged.
Saint Bridgid died after seventy years devoted to the practice of the most sublime virtues, during which her holy institute had become widely diffused throughout the Green Isle, and had greatly advanced the cause of religion in the various districts where it was established. Like a river of peace, its progress was steady and silent; it fertilized all the regions fortunate enough to receive its waters, and caused them to put forth spiritual flowers and fruits with all the sweet perfume of evangelical fragrance.

The day on which the holy nun was to terminate her course, February 1, 523, having arrived, she received from the hands of a saintly priest the blessed Body and Blood of her Lord in the divine Eucharist, and passed to the eternal vision of the God she had always adored. Her body was interred in the church adjoining her convent, but later was exhumed and deposited in a splendid shrine near the high altar, afterwards to be moved again and placed in the same grave with the relics of the glorious Saint Patrick. Their holy remains, together with those of Saint Columba, were translated afterwards to the cathedral church of Kildare.

[Stone]

February 1 – St. Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop & Martyr

Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Gueranger (1841-1875)

Two days more, and the happy season of Christmas will be over! This is the vigil of its termination, and lo! there comes to gladden us one of the grandest Martyrs of the year — Ignatius surnamed the Theophorus, (Greek for: “he that carries God” or “he that is carried of God”) Bishop of Antioch. A venerable tradition tells us, that this old man, who so generously confessed the faith before Trajan, was the child whom Jesus took into his arms, and showed to his Disciples as a model of that simplicity, which we must all have, if we would enter into the kingdom of heaven. Today he appears before us, standing near the Crib, in which this same Jesus gives us his own divine lessons of humility and simplicity.

But in this the Court of our Emmanuel, Ignatius stands near to Peter, the Feast of whose Choir we kept a few days since; for the Prince of the Apostles made him his second successor in his first See of Antioch. From so honored a position Ignatius derived that courage which made him resist a powerful Emperor even to his face, defy the wild beasts of the amphitheater, and triumph by a glorious martyrdom. As it were to show the supremacy of the See of Rome, Divine Providence willed that he, with his chains upon him, should go to see Peter, and finish his course in the Holy City, and thus mingle his blood with that of the Apostles. Rome would have been imperfect without the glory of Ignatius’ martyrdom, which is the pride of her Coliseum, rich as it is with the blood of so many thousands of martyrs.

Ignatius’ character is impetuosity of love for his God. He has but one fear — it is, that the prayers of the Romans will stay the lions from devouring him, and his desire of being united to Christ be thus denied him. Let us admire this superhuman fortitude, which shows itself thus suddenly amidst the pagan world, and let us acknowledge, that so ardent a love of God, and so vehement a longing to possess him, could only have come from the accomplishment of the Mysteries of our Redemption, which showed man how much God loved him. The Crib of Bethlehem, even had there never been the Sacrifice of Calvary, would, of itself, been sufficient to convince us of all this. God comes down from heaven for the sake of his creature, man; he himself becomes Man, nay, a Child, and is laid in a manger! Such miracles of love would have sufficed to save the guilty world; how, then, shall they not have power to prompt men to give their whole heart to their loving God? And would it be too much, if we made a sacrifice of our very lives to repay our Jesus for only that much of his love, which he showed us by being Born among us?

The Church gives us, in the Lessons of to-day’s Office, the brief account of our Saint given by St. Jerome in his Book On Ecclesiastical Writers. The holy Doctor has inserted a few sentences from the Martyr’s admirable Epistle, written to the Faithful of Rome. We would have gladly offered the whole of this Epistle to our readers, had it not been for want of space. But the passages quoted by St. Jerome are some of the finest.

Ignatius was the third Bishop of the Church of Antioch, St. Peter the Apostle being the first. During the persecution under Trajan, he was condemned to be devoured by wild beasts, and was sent in chains to Rome. During this voyage, which was made by sea, he had to stop at Smyrna, where Polycarp, the disciple of St. John, was Bishop. From this city, he wrote several Epistles; one to the Ephesians, a second to the Magnesians, a third to the Trallians, a fourth to the Romans. When he had left Smyrna, he addressed an Epistle to the Philadelphians and Smyrneans, and one to Polycarp himself, recommending to him his of Antioch. It is in this last named Letter, that he quotes from the Gospel, which I have lately translated, a passage bearing testimony to the persecution of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I cannot pass by this mention of so great a man, without citing a few sentences from the Epistle, which he wrote to the Romans. “From Syria,” he says, “even unto Rome, I am fighting with wild beasts, both by sea and land, both night and day, for I am fastened to ten leopards, I mean, to the soldiers who have care of me. When I show them a kindness, they grow more brutal. Their injuries are my instruction, but I am not thereby justified. I long for the wild beasts, that are prepared for me, which I heartily wish may rush upon me, and torture me, and devour me, and not be afraid to touch me, as has happened with other Martyrs. Nay, if they refuse to approach me, I will make them come on, I will rush upon them, that so they may devour me. Pardon me, my little children: I know what is for my own welfare.

“Now do I begin to be a disciple of Christ, and care for nothing in this world, that so I may find Jesus. Let fire, or the cross, or wild beasts, or the breaking of my bones, or the cutting me to pieces, or the shattering of my whole body, yea, all the tortures of the devil—let them all come upon me, only let me enjoy my God.” When he was sentenced to be devoured by wild beasts, and heard the roaring of the lions, his impatience to suffer made him exclaim: “I am the wheat of Christ—let me be ground by the teeth of wild beasts, that I may become the pure bread.” He suffered in the eleventh year of Trajan’s reign. His Relics are at Antioch, in the Cemetery outside the Daphne Gate.

We find the following stanzas in the Menæa of the Greek Church, for the feast of St. Ignatius.

Theologorum verticis successor vocatus, istorum vestigia prosecutus es, ortus ab Oriente et in Occidente manifestatus, et splendens fulgoribus divinæ prædicationis, ibique, omnisapiens, e mundo quidem secessisti, ad Deum autem elevaris splendore coronatus gratiæ. 
Called to be the successor of him who is the Prince of Theologians, thou didst follow in their footsteps. Thy rising was in the East, but thou wast manifested in the West, and there, O Ignatius, full of wisdom! thou didst shine with the splendor of thy heavenly preachings. Thou didst, indeed, depart from this world, but thou wast taken up to God, wearing on thy soul the rich crown of grace.

Resplendens quasi sol radiis Spiritus Sancti, mundi fines hilariter illuminasti fulgoribus certaminum tuorum, ferventer producens et veraciter scribens pietatis documenta; ideoque factus es alimentum Magistro qui alit omnia, omnibeate, bnignitate continua. 
Resplendent, as the sun, with the rays of the Holy Ghost, thou didst sweetly illumine the ends of the earth with the brilliancy of thy combat, and the maxims of piety breathed forth so warmly and so truly in thy writings. Thus didst thou, most blessed one! make thyself bread to the Master who, in his ceaseless love, feeds all created things.

Deifer Ignati, tuum amorem Christum confovens in pectore, pretium accepisti sacrificii Evangelii Christi in perfectionem per sanguinem; ideo frumentum factus immortalis agricolæ, per dentes bestiarum molitus es, et panis jucundus ipsi demonstratus es: deprecare pro nobis, athleta beate.
O Ignatius! O thou that carriest God! by cherishing Christ, thy Love, in thy breast, thou didst give thy blood for him, thus receiving the perfection of the sacrifice of the Gospel of Christ. Hereby, thou was the wheat of the divine Husbandman; and being ground by the teeth of lions, thou wast made his bread most sweet. O blessed Combatant! pray to him for us.

O quam solida et adamantina tui anima, beatissime Ignati; tu enim ad tuum vere amatorem, inexorabile habens desiderium, dicebas: Non est in me ignis materialis, magis vero aqua viva, in me dicens intus: Veni ad Patrem. Ideo, divino Spiritu inflammatus, bestias irritasti, ad separandum te quam citius a mundo, et immittendum te ad desideratum Christum: ipsum deprecare salvare animas nostras. 
Most saintly Ignatius! thy soul was firm as is the adamant; for thou didst say to thy Beloved Jesus, with an insatiable longing: “It is not material fire that burns within me—it is the voice of Him, who is the living Water, saying within my breast, Come to the Father!” Therefore, being inflamed by the Holy Spirit, thou didst urge on the lions to take thee quickly from this world, and carry thee to Christ, the object of all thy desires. Oh! pray to him, that he save our souls.


All thy desires were satisfied, glorious Martyr! Thou hast died for Jesus — thou art with Jesus. Rome’s sons and daughters filled the Coliseum; their savage joy made it tremble with their cheers as they saw thee mangled by the lions. It was the hour thou hadst prayed for — thy sacrifice for Him, who had sacrificed himself for thee, is over, and thy soul is buried in his divine embrace! Generous and impetuous lover of Christ! thou wast ambitious to pay thy debt to the Crucified — the death of suffering. It seemed to thee, that thou hadst no right to his kingdom, until thou hadst repaid his Passion by some cruel tortures endured for Him. O worthy companion of Stephen, Sebastian, Vincent, and Agnes! how rich and verdant is the Palm thou holdest over thy Jesus Crib! Canst thou look upon us, weak Christian cowards, and not pity us? Pray for us that we may at least be faithful to our Lord, when we are persecuted by the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil; that we may, at least, give our hearts to his service, if we are not to be permitted to give our bodies to be tortured for his name. Thou wast chosen, when a little child, as the model of the simplicity which our Saviour was teaching to his Disciples, and this innocence never left thee: — ask for us from Him, who is the King of Little Children, that one of the graces of the Christmas we have been keeping, may be this holy Simplicity of heart.

Successor of Peter in the See of Antioch! pray for the Churches of thy Patriarchate, that they may return to the true Faith and Catholic unity. Intercede for the holy City of Rome, which thou didst water with thy blood, and which is now in possession of thy sacred Relics, that were saved from the lions’ jaws. Watch over the maintenance of ecclesiastical discipline and order, of which thou hadst left such admirable rules in thy Epistles; and obtain for the Church, that all the members of her hierarchy may be united in the bonds of duty and love, that thus she may be beautiful in the strength of her unity and terrible to the enemies of God, as an army set in array.