Saturday in the 28th Week of Ordinary Time, October 17, 2020

The Feast of St. Ignatius of Antioch

As I write this, I am in a cell in the Franciscan Monastery in Irondale, Alabama.  I have had a good retreat and now it is time to go home. 

Luke 12:8-12

Jesus said to his disciples: “I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before others the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God. But whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God. 

“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.”

St. Luke is presenting a session of the Lord’s teaching.  He relies for the Lord’s words on the testimony of witnesses who speak from their memories.  Perhaps that accounts for the form of this speech as a collection of brief teachings that are not necessarily connected.  It is the same case as when a person has attended a class or lecture or read a chapter in a textbook and someone asks about what they remember from it.  The first person will tell what he most easily remembers, and provide a selection of highlights.

The Lord Jesus says, “Everyone who acknowledges me before others the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God.”  The Greek word translated here as “acknowledge” actually means “confess”, “profess”, and even “praise”.  To “acknowledge” someone is to simply state a fact without an opinion or response to the fact: “I knew him”, or, “He is present.”  However, to “confess” or “profess” makes clear that a serious relationship exists: “I believe in him.”  So, Everyone who professes their belief in me before others, the Son of Man will profess an intimate relationship with before the angels of God.  Let us note that this is not simply a matter of believing the Lord, but believing in the Lord.  On the other hand, “But whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God.”  The Greek word translated here as “deny” can also mean “to repudiate”, that is, to not simply deny, but to contemptuously reject.  “Before men . . . before the angels of God”.  The Lord challenges his hearers and those who would follow him: Whose opinion do they value more?  And the answer cannot be “both”.  And among whose company do they prefer to spend eternity?  With the wicked who sought their rejection of Jesus, or with the mighty angels who serve him?  As for the Lord’d confession and the repudiation, we know what he will say: “Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25, 34).  And: “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25, 41).

“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.”  This verse has long baffled even the learned and they have uttered many opinions.  St. Augustine says that the sin of impenitence was the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit because the first fruit of the Holy Spirit in baptism is the forgiveness of sin.  “Impenitence” means a steadfast refusal to repent and to follow the laws of God.  It can be a refusal to reject a sinful way of life or apostasy, which occurs when someone leaves the Faith and refuses to return even on his deathbed.  As a priest, I have seen this in visits to the dying in hospitals.  It is a dreadful thing to witness: an old man or woman who abandoned the Faith years before, then perhaps indulged in depraved activities to their own harm and that of others, and who then waved the priest away with hate in his heart or even with a curse as he or she lies dying, the sound of the respirator droning on beside the bed.  We must pray for ourselves and our loved ones that a steady life of self-indulgence does not lead us to that.

“When they take you before synagogues and before rulers and authorities”.  To this point in St. Luke’s Gospel there has been opposition to the Lord by the Pharisees, but no real persecution of his followers.  This saying may have not made much sense to those who heard it first, though it would have comforted them later when persecution did come from Jerusalem and elsewhere.  This teaching takes up the theme in the earlier verse about confessing belief in Christ.  The Lord Jesus tells those who believe in him as the Son of God not to worry about what defense they shall make for themselves in a hearing or trial.  The Holy Spirit will speak for them then, just as he spoke on their behalf to God when they did not know what to say to him (cf. Romans 8, 26).  We recall here that the Lord Jesus called the Holy Spirit the “Advocate”, one who speaks for another, one who represents another in a legal proceeding (cf. John 14, 26).  Baptized in the Holy Trinity, we are given life and protected by him all our days: the Father, who gives us life and sustains us; the Son, by whose Death we are forgiven and redeemed; and the Holy Spirit who speaks for us in prayer to the Father and defends us in our time of need.

In the verses which make up the Gospel reading for today’s Mass, the Lord speaks openly of what will make for our salvation and our damnation.  It is up to us to take his words personally and to live faithfully, to persevere in the Faith when called to account for it, and to pray for the grace of leaving this world at peace with God.  In this way did St. Ignatius of Antioch live and die, as shown in the brief, inspiring letters he wrote as he was brought to Rome to die in the amphitheater for his belief in the Lord Jesus.