Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr

Lectionary: 472 

Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.
When they take you before synagogues and before rulers and authorities, do not worry about how or what your defense will be or about what you are to say. For the Holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you should say.”

When they cite Luke 12:10, some people worry about "the unforgiveable sin" and completely miss the Lord's teaching on the Holy Spirit. Our assurances that the Lord forgives those who turn back to him fall on deaf ears; they seem to enjoy their status as unforgiveable sinners. 

In the nineteenth century, Saint John Henry Newman described the Church's centuries-long process of identifying and defining our beliefs. He allowed the possibility that the "heretics" were not evil people. Rather, they offered religious ideas and explanations that the Church had to finally reject. We would not understand our faith so well had these questions not been raised. 

Newman defied Protestant teaching as he taught that faith cannot be narrowly defined by the limited scope of the Bible. If the Bible contains the Word of God, the Word of God cannot be contained by the Bible, anymore than a man can be contained by a human body. 

A human being, in relation to others, God and the Earth, is so much more than a body! Likewise, the living Word of God presents itself as "ever ancient, ever new" to each generation. Our defined doctrines must be continually studied, explored, restated, redefined, and invited to change our hearts. 

We can say of our defined doctrines what we say of the Bible; they do not contain divine mysteries like the Eucharist and the Immaculate Conception. But they protect and celebrate them as gifts for future generations of the devout. 

Saint Ignatius of Antioch was a second generation Christian. He had heard the preaching of some apostles, those "eye witnesses" of the Resurrection; and then was called by the Spirit to lead the Church in Antioch. He welcomed the Spirit to guide him as a bishop during a period of great distress and confusion. He relied on God's spirit to give him the right attitudes and words even as he was taken to Rome and martyred. 

Following the teaching of Saint Paul about the Church as the one "Body of Christ," Ignatius spoke of one "Catholic" church that gathers people of every race, nationality, and language to the Lord. He described the duties of bishops and their relationship to priests and faithful layfolks, and saw in those relationships the living Word of God. A bishop who exercises the priesthood of Christ is not simply a leader of assorted believers; he acts in the person of Christ with the dignity and respect we accord to Christ. He can no more resign his priesthood than a baptised person can be unbaptized or the Lord can opt out of being the Savior. 

Had his writings been included in the New Testament, they might have prevented the confusion of those Christians who cannot recognize the gift of priesthood. They would not be deprived of the Precious Body and Blood of the Lord. 

Saint Ignatius was guided the Spirit which continued to reveal the mysteries of God in those earliest days of the Church. In today's Gospel we hear Jesus most solemn warning not to dismiss God's Spirit. Those who refuse to recognize the Presence of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity in today's stormy political, religious, economic world with its shifting demographics and ever changing technologies, are doomed to suffer a fearful homelessness.