I am writing to all the churches and I am instructing everyone that I am willingly dying for God, unless you prevent me. I beseech you, do not become an unseasonable kindness for me. Leave me to be bread for the beasts, through which I may be able to attain to God. I am God’s wheat and through the beasts’ teeth I shall be found to be pure bread for Christ.
Rather encourage the beasts, so that they may be my tomb and nothing be leftover of my body, so that I become no burden to anyone when I am dead. Then I shall truly be a disciple of Jesus Christ, when the world does not see even my body. Beseech the Lord on my behalf, so that I may be found a sacrifice for God through these instruments.
I am not directing you like Peter and Paul. They were apostles, I am a condemned criminal. They were free, I am still a slave. But if I should suffer I shall become a free man of Jesus Christ, and I shall rise up free in Him. And now I am learning, while chained, to be desirous of nothing.
St. Ignatius of Antioch