No longer common bread

Today, the 13^th Sunday in Ordinary Time in the church’s calendar supersedes the memorial of Saint Irenaeus (130-202A.D.) in the Latin church.  

The Eucharist was understood by him as with the key early Christian writers as linked to incarnation and resurrection.  Belief in the incarnation – that God had truly become a man in Jesus Christ – is inextricably bound up with belief in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. In his work, Against Heresies, he writes:

For as the bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to eternity.

Later, in the same work, he writes:

He has acknowledged the cup (which is a part of the creation) as His own blood, from which He bedews our blood; and the bread (also a part of the creation) He has established as His own body, from which He gives increase to our bodies.

As I wrote on 24 February (Attuning our way of thinking) in this blog series:

The body and matter are good contrary to what some were teaching

Thinking ‘eucharistically’ is to think in and with the Christian community. It is never just the Lord and me but the Lord and us who proclaim him as Lord and seek to live out his message.

Our bodies are destined for glory and every time we participate at mass we are making a profound act of hope.