Fourteenth day of Lent

St. Justin Martyr's first Apology, chapters 24-35

Thirteenth day of Lent

St. Justin Martyr's first Apology, chapters 12-23

Twelfth day of Lent

St. Justin Martyr's first Apology, chapters 1-11

Raised a Gentile, Justin sought the tutelage of several Greek schools of philosophy before finding that Christianity best answered his hunger for God.

Eleventh day of Lent

St. Ignatius of Antioch's Epistle to Polycarp

Polycarp, as you've seen by now, was mentioned by Ignatius in his letters to the Magnesians and the Ephesians.

Second Sunday of Lent

No required reading today.  Feast when the Church feasts, fast when the Church fasts.

However, if you want to keep your momentum, I might recommend Book One of Against Heresies by St. Irenaeus of Lyons, although this treatise is a little long in parts.

Tenth day of Lent

St. Ignatius of Antioch's Epistle to the Smyrnaeans

Much of this letter is spent answering the Docetist heresy, which denied the Incarnation.  It is also the first known use of the term "Catholic Church," but with a lack of explanation, suggesting the term was already in common use.

Ninth day of Lent

St. Ignatius of Antioch's Epistle to the Philadelphians

Another of the seven letters written by Ignatius.

This is the Philadelphia in western Turkey and mentioned as one of the seven churches in Revelation, not the city in eastern Pennsylvania, which was called Shackamaxon at the time if it was there to be inhabited by the Lenape that far back.

There's your random trivia for the day.

Eighth day of Lent

St. Ignatius of Antioch's Epistle to the Romans

Another of the seven letters written by Ignatius.

Seventh day of Lent

St. Ignatius of Antioch's Epistle to the Trallians (complete)

Another of his seven letters.

Sixth day of Lent

St. Ignatius of Antioch's Epistle to the Magnesians (complete)

Another of the seven letters written by Ignatius.

Pious tradition holds that Ignatius was the child mentioned in Mark 9:35.

Fifth day of Lent

St. Ignatius of Antioch's Epistle to the Ephesians (complete)

Ignatius, another student of John the Evangelist, was made the third bishop of Antioch by Peter.

This is one of seven letters written by Ignatius on his way to Rome and martyrdom.

First Sunday of Lent

No required reading today.  Feast when the Church feasts, fast when the Church fasts.

However, if you want to keep your momentum, I might recommend the First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians.

Clement of Rome was the fourth pope, following Linus and Cletus after Peter.

Fourth day of Lent

Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians (complete)

Polycarp was bishop of Smyrna, a contemporary of Irenaeus, and a disciple of John the Evangelist.

Third day of Lent

Epistle to Diognetus, chapters 7-12

All known copies of this document were made from a 13th century manuscript after damage caused the loss of two lines from the middle of the text.  The last two chapters are possibly additions from later in the second century or possibly early in the third century.

Second day of Lent

Epistle to Diognetus, chapters 1-6

An anonymous apologetic ("Mathetes" is not the author's true name but a word that means "disciple") from the late second century.

First Day of Lent

The Didache (complete)

The Didache is one of the oldest non-canon documents of Christianity.  Written in the late first century AD, it is thought by some to be the constitution of the Council of Jerusalem mentioned in Acts 15.  Thought lost, it was rediscovered in the late 19th century in Constantinople.

40 days of patristics for Lent

Since many bloggers largely stay offline for Lent, I thought I would try something different.  Lent is a good time to pray and meditate by turning to Christian writings that have already stood the test of time, but I don't mean to go against that.  Since I normally don't write very much (except when I really get going), and not all that well, I wanted to provide something worthwhile for people whose Lenten penances do not include avoiding the Blogosphere, to try facilitating some Patristic reading that everybody should at least develop some passing familiarity with.  Also, I compiled all the stuff I'm going to be posting over the next six weeks in advance, and I didn't personally have to write any of it, so it keeps this from becoming a chore for me as well.

When I was in grad school, someone turned me on to the Lenten Fathers devotion.  Over the course of the 40 days of Lent (Sundays excluded--they're feast days), with an average of 10-15 minutes of reading a day, you will have read some of the most influential documents of ten writers from the Patristic era.

Starting tomorrow, I will post links to the various Patristic writings from this reading plan at ChurchYear.net  I'd post the whole texts but I'm not entirely clear on the intellectual property rules for particular translations of documents in the public domain.  Most of them are short enough you can read the entire thing in one sitting, but for the longer ones I will link the whole document each day from New Advent, and list the chapters prescribed by ChurchYear.net for each day's reading because I don't know of a way to create links that navigate to specific locations inside a document that doesn't already have anchor tags where I'd want them.  If you know how, please let me know.

Since Sundays aren't included, in order to help keep in the habit of reading and reflecting every day, I have included additional Patristic documents to keep things consistent.  Some of them get a little long, but since Sundays are a day of rest, maybe you'll have more time for reading, anyway.