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Gospel: Luke 12: 13-21
Someone in the crowd said to Jesus,
“Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.”
He replied to him,
“Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?”
Then he said to the crowd,
“Take care to guard against all greed,
for though one may be rich,
one’s life does not consist of possessions.”
Then he told them a parable.
“There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.
He asked himself, ‘What shall I do,
for I do not have space to store my harvest?’
And he said, ‘This is what I shall do:
I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones.
There I shall store all my grain and other goods
and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you,
you have so many good things stored up for many years,
rest, eat, drink, be merry!”’
But God said to him,
‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you;
and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’
Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself
but is not rich in what matters to God.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
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Saint Ignatius, whose feast we celebrate today, was part of the second generation of Christians. He was the bishop of Antioch, located in modern-day Turkey, and might have known the Apostle John personally.
Little is known about Ignatius of Antioch, aside from his pastoral letters which he wrote to several Christian communities on his way to Rome, where he was martyred. We can still read the text of his letters today.
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One of the great insights Ignatius offers us is the early Christian belief in the Eucharist.
In his Letter to the Romans, he writes, “I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ… and for drink, I desire his blood.”
Elsewhere, in his Letter to the Smyrnaeans, he writes, “The Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ.”
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Ignatius offered his life for this belief. Because of his witness, and other Christians like him, the sacrifice of the Mass has been handed on to us today.
May he intercede on our behalf that we, too, would see Christ fully present in the Eucharist, profess our faith publicly, and find creative ways to hand on our faith to the next generation.
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Image credits: (1) Reasonable Catholic (2) EarlyChristians.org (3) Franciscan Media