Saturday of the Fifth week of Easter
Commentary of the day
Saint Polycarp (69-155), Bishop and martyr
Letter to the Philippians, 1-2, 8-9 (trans. Edgar Goodspeed)
"If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you"
I rejoice with you greatly in our Lord Jesus Christ that you welcomed the copies of true love [Ignatius of Antioch and his companions]...who were encumbered with saintly chains, which are the diadems of those truly chosen by God and our Lord. And I rejoice because the deep root of your faith, which has been renowned from early times, still lasts and bears fruit to our Lord Jesus Christ, who for our sins endured even facing death, and whom “God raised, releasing him from the throes of death” (Acts 2,24). “Though you have not seen him, you believe with unutterable, triumphant joy” (1Pt 1,8)... “He who raised him from the dead will raise us also” (2Cor 4,14), if we do his will and live by his commands and love what he loved... Let us be imitators of his endurance, and if we suffer for his sake, let us glorify him. For he set us this example himself, and this is what we have believed.
So I beg you all to obey the message of uprightness and to exhibit all endurance, such as you saw with your own eyes not only in the blessed Ignatius and Zosimus and Rufus, but also in others of your number, and in Paul himself and the rest of the apostles, being assured that all these “have not run in vain” (Gal 2,2), but in faith and uprightness, and that they are in the place that they have deserved with the Lord, with whom they suffered. For they did not “love the present world” (2Tm 4,10), but Christ who died for us and was raised up by God for our sakes.
The Church of Christ, zealous and cautious guardian of the dogmas deposited with it, never changes any phase of them. It does not diminish them or add to them; it neither trims what seems necessary nor grafts things superfluous . . . but it devotes all its diligence to one aim: To treat tradition faithfully and wisely; to consolidate and to strengthen what already was clear; and to guard what already was confirmed and defined. — Saint Vincent of Lérins