St Irenaeus on the Eucharist and the Virgin Mary

 Irenaeus goes on to attack the Gnostic teaching on the corruptible body.     "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"    Remember Irenaeus is speaking in the 2nd century, 100 plus, and he is telling us of the consecration of the bread into the Body of Christ by someone using the words of God, that is of Christ.    How dare anyone in the Church deny the existence of the Mass in the Early Church!      

But Irenaeus goes further to talk about the teaching of St Paul on Re-capitulation or a re-heading up  of the human race - Christ was the New Adam restoring a new humanity to the human race which could free itself from sin.    He tells us Jesus had an accomplice in his rebellion.   In his renewal and recapitulation of all things, God has not only given the the human race a new Adam but a new Eve as well.  Now Irenaeus had studied under Justin, this was the 2nd Century, 100 plus and Mary was called the New Eve, born without sin, and remaining faithful to God throughout her life.   The Spotless Maiden, the Immaculate Conception.    Our old sinful humanity was inherited from our first parents Adam and Eve, who had rebelled against God, but in Jesus and Mary there was a fresh start for humanity in a new parentage of Jesus and Mary.

But again is this just symbolic?   A nice thing to think!.    No!!    When we go to Communion every Sunday we receive the flesh of the New Adam, Jesus, but remember that His flesh is the flesh of Mary.  So our new parents pass on a new humanity to us through our reception into our fallen lives of a humanity that can free us from sin and death.    This is why we receive Communion, not just to make us feel good, but because of the words of Jesus Himself "Unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have life in you".     Just think of those wonderful martyrs in the early Church who went eagerly to their deaths to join Christ.    They were truly sharing in the human and divine, having received Jesus and the life He gave.    O, how I pray for such a Church today. 

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