Saint Ignatius of Loyola

THEODORET OF CYR:

And blessed Daniel the prophet, the divine Ezekiel (who was both prophet and priest) and many other priests in addition to them shared in these misfortunes. For God provided for those profane exiles and sent along also prophets that could be pedagogues and teachers so that the exiles might not incline entirely to godlessness.¹

JEROME:

We should not think that the glorious throne of God is only the throne of the temple, which was repeatedly destroyed, but that it is also every saint who is cast down and destroyed when he offends God by his multitude of sins, according to what is written: “You have cast his throne to the ground.” Nevertheless, the one who perishes from his own guilt is sustained by the clemency of the Lord, whereby the severity of the sentence is altered, lest the Lord invalidate his covenant in which he promised to be our coming salvation.²

ORIGEN:

What a state the person is in who has deserted the easy yoke and the light burden of Christ to subject himself once again to the yoke of demons and to bear the burden of the heaviest sin! How can this be after we have known that the heart of those who worship idols is ashes and their life more worthless than clay, and after we have said, “Our ancestors possessed false idols, and none of them can bring rain”?³

ORIGEN:

But when, as we have indicated, he gathers from the whole kingdom of Christ all things that make people stumble, and the reasonings that produce lawless acts are cast into the furnace of fire, and the worse elements utterly consumed … then shall the righteous, having become one light of the sun, shine in the kingdom of their Father. For whom will they shine? For those below them who will enjoy their light, after the analogy of the sun which now shines for those upon the earth? Of course, they will not shine for themselves. But perhaps the saying “Let your light shine before men” can be written “upon the table of the heart,” according to what is said by Solomon, in a threefold way. So even now the light of the disciples of Jesus shines before the rest of humanity, and after death before the resurrection, and after the resurrection “until all shall attain to full maturity” and all become one sun. Then shall they “shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”⁴

1. ON JEREMIAH 4.14.  Wenthe, D. O. (Ed.). (2009). Jeremiah, Lamentations (p. 116). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
2. SIX BOOKS ON JEREMIAH 3.40.1.  Wenthe, D. O. (Ed.). (2009). Jeremiah, Lamentations (p. 116). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
3. EXHORTATION TO MARTYRDOM 32.  Wenthe, D. O. (Ed.). (2009). Jeremiah, Lamentations (p. 116). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
4. COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 10.3.  Simonetti, M. (Ed.). (2001). Matthew 1–13 (p. 284). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.