Advice From Saint Ignatius I exhort you to continue your course in the grace in which you are clothed, and to exhort all to be saved. Justify your office by paying attention to the bodily and spiritual concerns of all; concentrate on unity, since there is nothing better than that. Be the same support to all as the Lord is to you. Be loving and patient with everyone, as you already are.
Devote your time in unceasing prayer. Ask for greater understanding than you have. Be vigilant with unsleeping spirit. Speak to each individual just as God would and bear the sickness of all like a perfect champion of Christ. Where there is greater toil there is great benefit.
If you love good disciples, you do yourself no favor; rather try to use gentleness to subdue the more troublesome. Not every wound is healed with the same kind of medicinal plaster. To bring spasm to an end you most use liniment.
Be intelligent like the serpent in all things and eternally innocent like the dove. The reason why you have a physical and a spiritual nature is so that you may have a softening effect on what is visible to you; but you must beg for the invisible to be revealed to you, so that you lack nothing and possess every gift in abundance.
As sailors require winds and the storm-tossed require harbors, the time requires you to attain God. Be vigilant, like a champion of God. The prize is immortality and eternal life in which you also believe. In all things I and my bonds, which you loved, are a substitute for you.
Saint Ignatius of Antioch
Saint Ignatius was the Patriarch of Antioch in early 2nd century and was martyred in Rome.
Advice From Saint Ignatius Courtesy of Holy Myrrh-Bearers Church
