Fr Alex Swain
Beloved in Christ,
Today we remember the blessed memory of Polycarp of Smyrna, Bishop and Martyr (d.~156 AD). While his feast day does not override the Lenten feria, Polycarp is worthy of being remembered.
Polycarp was born in the year 69, when many of the apostles still lived and were active in ministry. Numerous early Christian sources attest that Polycarp was a disciple of St. John the Apostle, one of Jesus’ own.
We still have one sole surviving work of Polycarp called the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians which gives us clues to the first Christian communities a generation after the writing of the Epistles in the New Testament.
Polycarp is one of three chief “Apostolic Fathers” along with Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch. These three either knew some of the apostles personally or were strongly influenced by them in the “ante-Nicene” period of the 1 and 2 centuries.
Ignatius of Antioch recounts that he heard Polycarp “relate how he conversed with John and many others who had seen Jesus Christ, the words he had heard from their mouths.”
Polycarp met those who met Jesus—and we still have a letter of his! This is utterly wonderful and amazing to me.
It reminds us that the Epistles of the New Testament are so much more than mere story or myth which are divinely inspired. They are accounts given by eyewitness to the miracles of Christ, and we have record of people shaped by the eyewitnesses of our Lord.
In the Martyrdom of Polycarp, he recounts to those about to kill him, “Eighty and six years I have served Him, and he has done me no wrong.”
Polycarp was ultimately burned at the stake and pierced by a spear for refusing to burn incense to the Roman emperor and his cult.
This is the life of a person shaped by eyewitnesses of Christ. Polycarp reminds us that our faith is rooted in profound historical realities, that God really came to Earth incarnate as Jesus Christ, and that the Apostles who bore witness to this truth went on to evangelize, raise disciples, and die for the truth of the Gospel.
May we be inspired during Lent to deepen our faith and come to know Christ more fully through self-denial and contemplation of the Holy Scriptures and prayer.
Yours in Christ,
—Fr Alex
