I Do Not Try to
Please Men, But God
From
Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church which has obtained mercy
through the majesty of the Most High Father and of Jesus Christ, his only Son;
to the Church which is beloved and enlightened by the will of him who wills all
things that are, according to the love of Jesus Christ our God; to the Church
which has precedence in the lands of the Romans; to the Church which is worthy
of God, worthy of honour, worthy of the blessing, worthy of praise, worthy of
success, worthy in its holiness, pre-eminent in love, named after Christ, named
after the Father. I greet that Church in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of
the Father. To those who are united in flesh and spirit to every one of his
commandments, filled with the grace of God without wavering and filtered clear
from every foreign stain, abundant greeting in Jesus Christ, our God, in
blamelessness.
I have prayed to the Lord to see
your godly faces and I have persevered in prayer until I have been granted
this — for I hope to greet you, as a prisoner in Christ Jesus, if only I
am found worthy to reach the end of my journey. Things have begun well and all
now depends on my receiving the grace to reach my goal and receive my
inheritance unhindered. But I fear your love for me and I fear the harm it can
do me: it is so easy for you to do what you want and so hard for me to reach
God if you do not spare me your help.
You
habitually do what pleases God: do what pleases him now and not what pleases
men. I shall never have a better opportunity of reaching God, and you will
never have the opportunity of performing a better act than now, by keeping
silence. If you remain silent, I shall become the word of God; but if your love
of my physical life makes you speak, I shall be nothing but a meaningless cry.
Grant
me nothing more than this: that I should be poured out to God, while an altar
is still ready for me. Form yourselves into a chorus of love and sing praise to
the Father in Christ Jesus for permitting this bishop of Syria to be summoned
from the place of the sun’s rising to the sunset lands. Just as the sun sets
only to rise again, how good it is to set to this world, to set and then to
rise in God.
Source:
The Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings
Photo
taken from MorgueFile Photos
Suggestioned Reading
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