Tuesday in the Twenty-Eighth Week in Ordinary Time, Cycle I
Rm 1, 16-25; Lk 11, 37-41
Feast of St Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr
There is no doubt that Ignatius himself must have felt in his own flesh the injustice of being uprooted from his community in Antioch, Syria, where he was a Bishop, to Rome, where he was to be fed to the lions in the Colosseum in Rome. Indeed, the injustice was not only towards him, but towards his whole community, and the community of humanity at large. In his seven letters to the churches on his way to Rome, Ignatius does gives no indication about why he was being taken away and martyred. However we know that he lived courageously this particular moment of life. Over and over again, we see him encourage his fellow Christians, anticipating the joy of being finally united with Christ once and for all.
Ignatius took to heart the words of Paul, "The one who is righteous by faith will live." He understood that the Christian has a unique place of living the tension of believing that the righteous by faith will live indeed. All too often we are overtaken by disappointment and discouragement, which slowly eats away at our determination to do good. But the Christian does not give in to these temptations, and if he or she ever does, he or she is always ready to start again. For every moment has the potential to change the course of the future no matter what the history has been.
This is also one aspect of Jesus' teaching in the gospel today. The Pharisees gave a lot of importance to the external precepts - and rightly so - but sometimes these distracted them from what is most important. Jesus shows them that the meanings of the precepts are as important as the precepts themselves. To apply them to our daily life, there are many things that define us as Christians, and even as Catholics: and we should keep them, but at the same time, we also need to nurture the character of the Christian, one who like Ignatius, is not afraid of living in the tension of living a righteous faith, for it will indeed bring life.
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