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Hey, Hello, I'm Jeff and welcome to fundamentally Catholic. We
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are not here to discuss or teach doctrine. We just
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want to educate you on the Catholic history and why
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the Church is the way it is today. Today we
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are in the early one hundreds. The Church is still
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small enough to fit into a handful of Roman houses,
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but stubborn enough to survive in an empire that would
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prefer that it didn't exist. Right in the middle stands
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a sixth pope, Pope Saint Alexander the First. Now he's
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not flashy, he doesn't leave behind long letters like Pope
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Clement did. He doesn't have a dramatic story like Peter
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or Paul. He does represent something the early Church desperately needed. Stability, quiet, steady,
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stubborn stability in a world that is not rooting for
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Christianity to succeed. If you picture Rome around the year
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one one, Emperor Trajan was in charge. He was a
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brilliant general, a pretty good administrator. He had absolutely no
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desire to legalize Christianity. Under Trajon, Christians they were not
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hunted daily, but they were always vulnerable. Yeah, if someone
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accused you of being a Christian. You would be interrogated,
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then you'd be pressured to sacrifice to the Roman gods
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and executed if you didn't. The church he was living
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under a weird tension. Not a full scale persecution, but
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a constant, low grade threat. It had no buildings, no
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legal protections, and no public worship. Yeah, just a small
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community meeting in homes, praying quietly and hoping the neighbors
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didn't ask many questions. Then in steps Alexander, a young
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Roman only around thirty years old. He was chosen to
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lead a church that was still figuring out how to
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be the church. The historical record from that time is
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really thin, but we do know a couple things for certain.
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Alexander he reigned from about one oh five to one fifteen,
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right after pote Everistus. He lived during a time of
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increasing Roman suspicions of Christians, especially as the faith spread
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beyond Jewish communities associated with early eucharistic prayers, especially the
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narrative of the Last Supper. That's important. It tells us
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something that's true. About that time. The church was beginning
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to formalize how it prayed. This is a generation after
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the Apostles. The church was moving from we remember what
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the apostles did and said, we need a stable and
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recognizable pattern of worship. Some things the Church remembers about
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Alexander the First, even if we can't actually footnote him
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with certainty. First, adding water to eucharistic wine. This is
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still one of the oldest liturgical actions that we still
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do today. Tradition says Alexander emphasized it or even introduced it.
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Whether he personally did it or not, it just reflects
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on how early Christians understood the Eucharist, not just as
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a meal, but as a mystery with layers of meaning. Alexander,
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he institute is certain blessings. He is linked to the
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use of holy water mixed with assault for blessing houses. Again,
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maybe he personally introduced it or it developed organically, but
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the tradition shows that the Church was beginning sacramental daily life.
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So why does a pope with barely any surviving documents matter?
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Because Alexander represents the church learning how to endure. He
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shows us the church didn't collapse after the Apostles died.
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He shows us the Church didn't need political power to survive.
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It shows us that even in subscurity, the Church was
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developing a recognizable liturgy, identity, and sacramental life. Alexander shows
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us that leadership in the early Church wasn't about charisma,
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it was about faithfulness. He's the pope who knew how
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to keep the church steady while an empire watched suspiciously
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from the outside. Alexander's death is believe he was martyred
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by Treyjon, but it's details from it. Yeah, it's lost
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to history. Do you ever wonder why the Catholic Mass
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looks the way it does? Why it has this structure,
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Why these prayers? Why on Sunday? Why word and then Eucharist?
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If you've grown up with the Mass, it might feel ancient,
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like it just dropped out of the sky, fully formed.
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The truth is more interesting. The Mass is the product
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of memory, inheritance, and identity. Let's start with why Christians
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meet on Sunday? Why not Saturday like the Jews? Why
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not any day? A well? Three reasons? What direction happened
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on a Sunday the earliest Christians, they called it the
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first day of the week or the Lord's Day. Gathering
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on Sunday was a weekly celebration of the resurrection, a
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mini Easter, the early Church. You wanted continuity with Judaism,
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but not dependence on it. They weren't rejecting the Sabbath.
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They were proclaiming something new had happened. Sunday gatherings were
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already happening by the end of the first century, saying
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Ignatius of Antioch his writings around the year one oh seven,
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talked about Christians no longer keeping the Sabbath, but living
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according to the Lord's Day. So why does the Mass
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have two parts? If you look at the Mass today,
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it has a very clear structure. One liturgy of the Word,
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two liturgy of the Eucharist. This is not a medieval invention.
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It is not a Council of Trent inventions, not even
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a Constantinary invention. This structure is first century. So where
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did it come from? Well, the synagogue Jewish Shynagogue worship
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had two main components, reading and teaching the scriptures, and
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then prayers and blessings. So when the Apostles began preaching,
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they didn't throw structure out. They added it. Early Christian
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worship it went like this, scripture readings from the Old Testament.
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The New Testament wasn't written yet. A homily prayers are
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the faithful, and what separated Christians the Eucharist. This is
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why the Mass feels both familiar and different to Jewish worship.
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It's the synagogue pattern fulfilled and completed the early Christians.
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They didn't gather primarily to hear a sermon. They gathered
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to receive the Eucharists. From the beginning, the Eucharist was
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the sinner. The Eucharist was the identity. Euchrist was the
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dividing line between Christians and non Christians. Saint Paul wrote
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in about year fifty five. He describes that the Eucharist
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asked something he received from the Lord and handed on.
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This is the earliest account of the Last Supper by
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the time of Pope Alexander. The Eucharist it wasn't symbolic,
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it wasn't a metaphor, and it wasn't a community meal.
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It was the real presence of Christ. Christians were willing
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to die for it rather than deny it. This is
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why the Mass is structured to build towards the Eucharist.
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Everything in the first half prepares you for the second half.
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So how did the early Christians pray the Eucharistic prayer?
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As I talked about earlier tradition says that Pope Alexander
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helped shape and stabilize parts of the US egoistic prayer,
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especially the narrative of the Last Supper, where it starts
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out on the night he was betrayed, and and so on.
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By the one hundreds, the Church was moving from spontaneous
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prayer to structured prayer to preserve apostic teaching, to prevent
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theological drift, to unify scattered communities, and to protect the
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eucharists from misunderstanding. The ecoistic prayer becomes a stable, recognizable
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pattern of thanksgiving, calling down the Holy Spirit, the words
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of Jesus, offers and sacrifice, prayers for the living and
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the dead, and the final doxology. You hear that every
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Sunday there are Jewish roots in Christian worship. The Mass
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is not a random collection of rituals. It is the
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fulfillment of Synagogue worship, which is the Word, and Temple worship,
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which is sacrifice. The Synagogue gave us reading Psalms, homily
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in prayers. The Temple gave us sacrifice, offering priesthood and
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the altar. Christianity did not erase Judaism. It completed it.
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If you want to understand the early Church, you have
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to understand the Mass was the heart beat of the
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Christian identity. It shaped their theology, their commune unity, their courage,
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and their willingness to die. That leads us to one
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of the most important men in the early Church, Saint
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Ignatius of Antioch. Ignatius he was born into a pagan
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family in Syria. He became the Bishop of Antioch. Ignatius
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he lived and taught in the generation immediately after the Apostles. Yeah.
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It was during Alexander's time. He was the first Christian
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writer to give a fully developed picture of the role
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of the bishop, the structure of the church, the unity
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of the Christian community, the centrality of the Eucharist, and
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the meeting, the meaning of martyrdom. His letters give a
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snapshot of Christian life shortly after the Apostles died. They
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show how Christians worshiped, how they understood authority, how they
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view the Eucharist, how they handle false teaching, and how
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they thought about unity. These letters are not abstract theology,
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they are real Ignatius. He is famous for the line
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where the bishop is there is the church. This is
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not a metaphor, Ignatius, he meant it literally. For him,
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the bishop is the center of unity, the guaranteer of
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apostic teaching, the presider over the Eucharus, and the shepherd
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who holds the community together. Ignatius assumed without argument that
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every Christian community has one bishop, a council of priests
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and deacons. This is the earliest evidence of the threefold
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ministry that still exists today. Now remember this is around
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the year one oh seven. It's not a hierarchy that
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was imposed later on. This is the structure of the church,
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right off the belt. Ignatius. He is also the earliest
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Christian writer to speak explicitly and forcibly about the eucharists.
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He said, the Eucharist is the real flesh of Christ,
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the medicine of immortality, and the center of Christian unity.
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The early Church did not see the eucharists as a symbol.
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They saw it as the literal sacremonial presence of Christ.
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Ignatius he was obsessed with unity, not as an ideal,
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but as a concrete, lived reality. For him, unity meant
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staying close to the bishop, avoiding false teachers, gathering for
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the eucharists maintaining charity work in the community. He saw
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division as the greatest threat to the church and the
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Eucharists as the antidote to division. Ignatius he was arrested
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in Antioch under Trajan. He was not executed locally. He
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was transported under military guard across Asian Minor to Rome.
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Along the way he stopped in major Christian cities that
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included Smyrna that's in Turkey today. He met believers and
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he wrote letters. His letter to the Smerians is part
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of a group of seven letters he wrote just before
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he was martyred. He wrote it underguard, traveling city to city,
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preparing himself for martyrnom In it, Ignatief gave one of
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the most important moments in Christian history. He used the
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word Catholic for the first time to describe the church.
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He wrote, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.
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This is the oldest text where the church is called Catholic.
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Notice what he does here, though, Ignatius, he is not
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naming a denomination. He is not distinguishing Catholics over other Christians,
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though that division doesn't exist yet. For Ignatius, Catholic means
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the universal Church, the church that is whole, not fragmented.
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The church gathered around the bishop celebrating the Eucharus, the
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church that holds the Apostolic faith handed down from the Apostles,
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So the Catholic Church did not become Catholic. Later Christians
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were already using the word just a decade after all
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the apostles died. When he arrived in Rome, he was
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taken to the coliseum and fed the lions. Literally he
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was the lions only left a couple of his larger
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bones and some of his supporters they were able to
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take those bones back to Antioch. He was in his sixties.
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I know, it kind of feels almost anti colmatic, that
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great guy, and then boom is over. Well, hopefully now
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you understand the sixth Pope Alexander and why the mass
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is structured ass is and you know Saint Ignashi's had
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gave us the word Catholic. Oh be sure. Thank you
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all for listening today. Make sure you follow us and
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check out the show notes and all that'll give you
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links to our website and everything you know. Until next time,
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God bless