The Early Church’s Belief in the Eucharist

The entire Easter season is filled with readings in the Mass and in the official prayer of the church, the Breviary, that constitute sort of a historical catechism of the Catholic faith.  I was praying the first hour of the day for April 22 in my Breviary this morning, and it ended with a passage from the treatise “Against Heresies” by St. Irenaeus, bishop and martyr.  It contained a graphic explanation of the Eucharist, the most important of the seven sacraments that we believe Jesus left his church.  

St. Irenaeus was the bishop of Lyon France, and a grandson in the faith of Jesus’ apostle and evangelist St. John.  What I mean is that St. John the Evangelist had a friend and disciple who was a priest and martyr, St. Polycarp.  In turn, he had a friend and disciple who became the first of the early church fathers revered by both the East and West churches as St. Irenaeus, bishop and martyr of Lyon.  He was born between 120 and 130 in Smyrna, Turkey, and died around 200.  The passage I will quote, written in the second century, which I read from my e-Breviary, (Isn’t that a bit of irony?) is entitled “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 St. John says: “In him, through his blood, we have been redeemed, our sins have been forgiven.    

“We are his members, and we are nourished by creatures, 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? 

St. Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians that we are members of (the Lord’s)  body, of his 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 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 in weakness.”

The breviary then asks the reader to pray a response from 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.”

Last year a survey was taken by a public group which asked Catholics if they believed that in the Mass the bread and wine really become Christ’s body and blood.  A significant number responded that the bread and wine were just “signs” of Christ’s body and blood.  We can see from the testimony of St. Irenaeus in the second century that from the apostle John, who was at the Last Supper and with Jesus under the cross, and who saw him with the other apostles after his resurrection, to his pupil St. Polycarp, to his pupil St. Irenaeus, the belief was that Jesus meant what he said.  He left us this sacrament in every Mass so that we might share his real presence in the Eucharist, formally declared by the Council of Trent in the 16th century to be the presence of “his body and blood, soul and divinity.”  

I have a hunch that if those who designed the survey had asked Catholics if they believed that Jesus was really present to them when they received the Eucharist, many more would have answered yes.  They should all pray the breviary. 

Father Carville is a retired priest in the Diocese of Baton Rouge and writes on current topics for The Catholic Commentator. He can be reached at [email protected].