“Join with others in being imitators of me…[remember that] our citizenship is in heaven.”
Our week finishes with the memorial of St. Ignatius of Antioch, bishop and martyr in the 2nd century A.D. It is fitting that during a week which begin by inviting us to put on Christ, and where we reflected on how that phrase pointed to taking on the heart of Christ, that this same week closes with holding up one of the most iconic martyrs of the early Church. In his letter to the Romans while he was preparing for his death, he reflected upon how he saw his death as a means of imitating Christ as he had done in his life. He interprets his impeding martyrdom as a fulfillment of a life lived in imitation of the Eucharistic Christ: “Give me the privilege of imitating the passion of My God…I no longer take pleasure in perishable food or in the delights of this world. I want only God’s bread, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ…which is a love that cannot perish.” Ignatius, at the end of his life which he had lived teaching and preaching about the Paschal Mystery and about the Eucharist as being a model for our life, now sees in his death a final opportunity to model himself about his Lord and Savior. He, like Paul in the readings today, remembers that his citizenship is in heaven, and this knowledge allows him to face his death with the divine outlook not as an end but as “birth to real life.” One who is able to face his death with this Christ like outlook has truly put on Christ over the course of his life. He has allowed God to be the tailor of his spiritual life and his heart, and he has welcomed the garment that Christ has prepared for him to celebrate in the eternal banquet in the next life. Let us pray today, like St. Ignatius, to understand our life in the light of the Eucharist and the Heart of Christ – willing to die daily to ourselves so that we might rise anew as citizens of heaven.