St. Irenaeus - The Eucharist - Pledge of our Resurrection

From the treatise Against Heresies by Saint Irenaeus, bishop

The eucharist, pledge of our resurrection

If our flesh is not saved, then the Lord has not redeemed us with his blood, the eucharistic chalice does not make us sharers in his blood, and the bread we break does not make us sharers in his body. There can be no blood without veins, flesh and the rest of the human substance, and this the Word of God actually became: it was with his own blood that he redeemed us. As the Apostle says: In him, through his blood, we have been redeemed, our sins have been forgiven.

We are his members and we are nourished by creation, which is his gift to us, for it is he who causes the sun to rise and the rain to fall. He declared that the chalice, which comes from his creation, was his blood, and he makes it the nourishment of our blood. He affirmed that the bread, which comes from his creation, was his body, and he makes it the nourishment of our body. When the chalice we mix and the bread we bake receive the word of God, the eucharistic elements become the body and blood of Christ, by which our bodies live and grow. How then can it be said that flesh belonging to the Lord’s own body and nourished by his body and blood is incapable of receiving God’s gift of eternal life? Saint Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians that we are members of his body, of his flesh and bones. He is not speaking of some spiritual and incorporeal kind of man, for spirits do not have flesh and bones. He is speaking of a real human body composed of flesh, sinews and bones, nourished by the chalice of Christ’s blood and receiving growth from the bread which is his body.

The slip of a vine planted in the ground bears fruit at the proper time. The grain of wheat falls into the ground and decays only to be raised up again and multiplied by the Spirit of God who sustains all things. The Wisdom of God places these things at the service of man and when they receive God’s word they become the eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ. In the same way our bodies, which have been nourished by the eucharist, will be buried in the earth and will decay, but they will rise again at the appointed time, for the Word of God will raise them up to the glory of God the Father. Then the Father will clothe our mortal nature in immortality and freely endow our corruptible nature with incorruptibility, for God’s power is shown most perfectly in weakness.

RESPONSORY John 6:48-52

I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate manna in the desert, and they died.
— This is the bread that comes down from heaven; anyone who eats this bread will never die, alleluia.

I am the living bread come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever.
— This is the bread that comes down from heaven; anyone who eats this bread will never die, alleluia.
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Here are some of my thoughts on this. Check out what I say and compare it to official Catholic sources. Some years ago I began to read the Church fathers. Not long ago it dawned on me that they were my favorite theologians and that they were all Catholic.

Here is Irenaeus giving a very Catholic explanation of the Eucharist way back in the 2nd Century. I am not a scholar. I am not an apologist. I am not an academic. I am just a person who loves God and His Word and now the Catholic Church. So, I post things by Catholic scholars, apologists, academics, and saints that I find to be helpful. My own comments may or may not be helpful.  I hope they are.

This St. Irenaeus quote is evidence to the idea that the Catholic Church’s teaching on the Eucharist is the true and most ancient Christian teaching about the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The blood is the blood of Christ and the bread is the body of Christ at the Word of God. It is also a piece of evidence to support the Catholic Church’s claim that she has not changed key dogmas. 

Notice how Irenaeus relates the Eucharist to the Incarnation. Protestants get criticized for denying the Real Presence - Christ’s body, blood, soul, and divinity - in the elements. Protestants have a problem with both Scripture and the earliest teachings of the Church when they make the claim that the bread and the wine are merely symbolic. In Protestant teaching, Christ is present spiritually, but not physically in the bread and the wine.

There is plenty of evidence to support the Catholic teaching - both Scriptural and traditional.

Irenaeus dates from the early 2nd century, long before Emperor Constantine. In fact, as a young man, he had heard St. Polycarp, who was a disciple of the Apostle John. [1.]

Why is that significant?  We are taught in Protestantism that the Church became corrupted when Constantine declared Christianity to be the official religion of the Empire. That corruption - which allegedly began to be corrected over 1,000 years later by the Reformers - included what most Reformers believe to be the idolatrous meaning of the Eucharist as practiced by Catholics.

So, who changed the Eucharist? The Reformers did. I am not an academic scholar, of course. So please look into this for yourself.

It is interesting to note that Eastern Orthodox Churches have basically the same theology as Catholics - with very few differences. They are in agreement about the meaning of the Eucharist - the Real Presence of Christ.

The Reformers would have to say that the Holy Spirit allowed the Church to be in error for over 1,000 years before He corrected the teaching on the Eucharist through men like Luther and Calvin. That is highly unlikely if the Holy Spirit really had been poured out on the Church at Pentecost. [See Acts 1 & 2]

Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would lead His people into all truth. Why would it take Him so long to correct such an error if it really were an error?  [2.]

No Church council had ever tried to change or “correct” the understanding of the Eucharist that Irenaeus clearly portrays. So why did the Reformers take it upon themselves to corrupt the clear meaning of Jesus’ words. [See John 6:48-52]

It is an offense to the Holy Spirit to say that He allowed the Church to be led into error for a long, long time instead of into all truth. 

This is from today’s Office of Readings. [3.]
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[1.] Entry about St. Irenaeus from The New Advent
[2.] John 16:13Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)

13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

[3.] April 14, 2016 - DivineOffice.org - Office of Readings for Thursday in the 3rd week of Easter