From
The Liturgical Year
by Dom Guéranger, O.S.B.
Amidst the sweetness he is enjoying from the contemplation of the Word made
Flesh, John, the Beloved Disciple, beholds coming towards him, his dear
Polycarp, the Angel of the Church of Smyrna, all resplendent with the glory of
martyrdom. This venerable Saint has in his soul the fervent love that made him
say in the amphitheatre, when asked by the Proconsul to curse his Divine Master:
"Six-and-eighty years have I served Him, and he has never done me any wrong;
nay, he has laden me with kindness. How could I blaspheme my King, who has saved
me?" After having suffered fire and the sword, he was admitted into the presence
of this King his Saviour, in reward for the eighty-six years of his faithful
service, for the labours he had gone through in order to maintain faith and
charity among his flock, and for the cruel death he endured.
He was a disciple of St. John the Evangelist, whom he imitated by zealously
opposing the heretics, who were then striving to corrupt the faith. In obedience
to the command of his holy Master, he refused to hold intercourse with Marcion,
the heresiarch, whom he called the first-born of Satan. This energetic adversary
of the proud sect that denied the mystery of the Incarnation, wrote an admirable
Epistle to the Philippians, in which we find these words: Whosoever confesses
not that Jesus Christ came in the flesh, is an Antichrist. Polycarp, then,
had a right to the honour of standing near the Crib, in which the Son of God
shows himself to us in all his loveliness, and clothed in flesh like unto our
own. Let us honour this disciple of John, this friend of Ignatius, this Bishop
of the Apostolic Age, whose praise was pronounced by Jesus Christ himself in the
Revelations of Patmos. Our Saviour said to him by the mouth of Saint John: Be
thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life. Polycarp
was faithful even unto death, and has received his crown; and whilst we are
celebrating the coming of his King among us, he is one of the Saints who assist
us to profit by the holy season.
The Church gives us a passage from St. Jerome's book, On Ecclesiastical
Writers, in which there is contained the following short notice of our holy
Martyr.
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