The Incarnation’s Increasingly Ignored Gifts to Transform Our Mortal Lives – Part 5 of 5: The Eucharist

In the Introduction to this series, we listed the Five Increasingly Ignored Gifts for our Transformation: the Divine Law Fulfilled, the Church, the Intercessions of the Saints, the Indwelling of the Holy Trinity, and the Eucharist. These five Sacramentals are made possible only because the Holy Trinity became fully human over 2,000 years ago.

The goal for each of these five Sacramentals is to transform us, not as a one-time-thing, but as a necessity for our lifetime attention, every day, never-ending.

The evidence of our experience plainly shows that when we call upon these Sacramentals, which God provides out of infinite love for us, our transformations are immensely simpler and more swift. We can see the stories unfold in our friends, family, and even Catholic novels.

The fifth Sacramental discussed here is the Eucharist. In short, Eucharist focuses us on the reality that an instance of the material world can become the Holy Trinity in essence. “The chalice of benediction, which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread, which we break, is it not the partaking of the body of the Lord?” (1 Corinthians 10:16). The Catechism of Trent is clear: “This conversion, then, is so effected that the whole substance of the bread is changed by the power of God into the whole substance of the body of Christ, and the whole substance of the wine into the whole substance of His blood, and this, without any change in our Lord Himself.”

So, the Eucharist is not "symbolic." But "symbolic" is the likely explanation acceptable to the erstwhile, never-returning followers of Jesus in John 6:67, “After this many of his disciples went back; and walked no more with him.” As Flanner O’Connor is purported to have said, “Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.”

This philosophical reality of the Eucharist conquers every Modernist doctrine: existentialism, materialism, scientism, hedonism, Marxism. The Eucharist is the natural promise that God can keep, to be with us after His Ascension. It implies that the Platonic/Aristotelian/Augustinian/Thomistic concepts of a holy world “behind” the material world are entirely correct.

This holy Gift, this Sacramental, the Eucharist, shares the same ten characteristics with the other four Sacramentals:

1) The Incarnation of God incites and illuminates this Sacramental for us. Only the human birth, life, and death of the second person of the Trinity originates this Gift for us.

We know that Christ instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper, after delineating the meaning behind it in the latter half of John 6, just after the miracle of the loaves and fishes: “This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eateth this bread, shall live for ever.” (John 6:59)

2) The Holy Trinity designed this Sacramental to guide, and be invoked in, our brief mortal lives. And it leads to the Beatific Vision afterward.

Again, Christ Himself instituted this Gift, a transubstantiation of the simplest of foods, as an earthly remembrance of His Passion, His Resurrection, and the life to come.

3) This Sacramental is universal to all Christians.

The Eucharist can be adored by all. But the Catholic Church uniquely accentuates this Sacramental in allowing only members who have undergone instruction and Confession to consume the Eucharist. For centuries, however, the Eucharist was available few times during the year. Indeed, the Catholic Church requires us to receive it only once per year. The key is the Holy Mass, the Liturgy of the Eucharist, which we must pray along with, at least weekly.

4) The Christian world is ignoring this Sacramental, more and more, every generation.

Below are presented two surveys, each asking similar, but not exactly the same questions. The answers differed, but that could be from wording. However, the implications are obvious.

https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/FT_19.08.05_Transubstantiation_Topline.pdf

2019: American Catholics, “Regardless of the official teaching of the Catholic Church, what do you personally believe about the bread and wine used for Communion?”

• 31% believe that bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus Christ
• 69% believe that the bread and wine "are symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ”

https://www.ncronline.org/news/knowledge-and-belief-about-real-presence

2011: “The Bread and Wine Really Become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ”

• Yes: 63%
• No: 37%

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/08/09/explainer-why-eucharist-confusing-many-catholics-and-survey-researchers

1994: Catholics asked which statement came closest to ‘what you believe takes place at Mass,’

• About 1 out of 3 chose “the bread and wine are changed into Christ’s body and blood”

The next group of three characteristics point to how we know this Gift: by revelation and faith.

5) We can understand the basis of this Sacramental from Scripture and Tradition. See the end of this article for a more complete set of passages. Remember to take each passage as a starting point for the Magisterium, an entire library of concurring Truths.

6) We can recall this Sacramental, anytime, anywhere, by using Scripture we already know by heart.

• The Paternoster: “Give us this day our daily bread”
• Beatitude: “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.”

7) We can invoke and build upon this Sacramental, daily, by using these two particular devotions.

• Eucharistic Adoration
• The Liturgy of the Eucharist and Receiving the Body and Blood

The Liturgy of the Eucharist simultaneously enables us to remember, witness to, give thanks for, meditate on, honor, rejoice in, and be sorrowful for, the Passion and Resurrection of Christ. As the Catechism for the Council of Trent¹ states, “We therefore confess that the Sacrifice of the Mass is and ought to be considered one and the same Sacrifice as that of the cross, for the victim is one and the same, namely, Christ our Lord, who offered Himself, once only, a bloody Sacrifice on the altar of the cross. The bloody and unbloody victim are not two, but one victim only, whose Sacrifice is daily renewed in the Eucharist, in obedience to the command of our Lord: Do this for a commemoration of me.” Then we can receive it, infuse it, and pray during the valuable time when the Trinity is even closer to us.

The final group of three characteristics point to the fears that the Gifts help us overcome, and the consequences of failing to accept these Gifts and caving in to fear.

8) This Sacramental helps overcome widespread, but distracting and pointless, human fears.

The distraction here is the fear of death, and the anxiety of the loss of loved ones, and our own loss of the things of this world, including the distraction of the need to memorialize the here-and-now. Where the Holy Trinity is, so is heaven. Where heaven is, so are the saints and angels. Affirming our belief in the Eucharist defies any fear of death imaginable. 

9) That fear or distraction often heavily associates with a particular modern temptation, which we often use to sinfully defeat that fear.

The fear of death is the most elemental fear inherent in all human neuroses and psychoses. But all of us use different avenues to try to defeat death, including seeking immortality in work, offspring, and possessions. We also suffer anxiety as health and body decline, and seek futile ways of reversing age and death. The sinfulness here is the distraction from seeking holiness and honoring God.

10) That sinful alternative illustrates a battle between a unique theology of Catholic Christianity versus a heresy held by other “religions.”

The error and heresy invoked here is the predominance of two realities: (a) the substrative, and (b) the perceived. If we realized the predominance of the supernatural reality of the Holy Trinity, which the Eucharist constantly demonstrattes, the fear of death would dissipate to almost nothing. The substrative reality is found in religions such as Taoism, Deism, materialism, Freudianism, Marxism, and Post-Marxism. The perceptive reality is found in religions such as Buddhism, existentialism, and hedonism. In short, when we believe either of these realities outweigh the Holy Trinity, we inescapably will fear death.

But this search to eliminate the fear of death is unnecessary. With the Sacrament of the Eucharist, in our believing in the presence of the Holy Trinity, in our adoring it, in our praying along with the Liturgy of the Eucharist to recollect and honor the Passion and Resurrection, we remember the eventual acceptance of our souls into heaven. St. Ambrose says, as quoted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Could not Christ's word, which can make from nothing what did not exist, change existing things into what they were not before? It is no less a feat to give things their original nature than to change their nature.”

To summarize this Sacramental and its importance to each of our transformations, I’ll use the explanation given in my novel, Virtual Eternity: An Epic 90s-Retro Florida Techno Pro-Life Love Story and Conversion Journey, as conveyed by Dante, the main character’s guide when he reaches heaven:

“Humans suffer many more distractions, such as the fear of death, the desires to live forever and to memorialize their experiences in this world, and the despair and longing that they believe death will cause. The sins of despair and pride cause these fears.

“And might deliver them, who through the fear of death were all their lifetime subject to servitude. (Hebrews 2:15) ² 

“And the devil and its world befuddle you all on how to overcome these many fears, such as using the faulty notion that you can ignore, avoid, escape from, delay, or overcome death, decay of your body and mind, and the loss of those you love. Even worse, they believe in, and feel the constant emotions of, fear, hopelessness, and angst.

“You do not need such sinful lies. Instead, accept and understand the meaning of the Holy Eucharist, by the grace of God, as the perfect analogy and reality of the eternal happiness to come, infinitely more blissful than the epiphanies and loves you attain on earth, although those gifts do serve to portray, in tiny ways, that joy.

“If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world. (John 6:52) ²

“As the Holy Trinity transubstantiates into your changing world, your soul similarly transubstantiates into heaven, or hell.

“The chalice of benediction, which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread, which we break, is it not the partaking of the body of the Lord? (1 Corinthians 10:16) ²

“Thus, the Holy Trinity desires you to know that Christ is the Eucharist, under the illusive appearance of bread and wine. And the Son cannot be separated from the Holy Trinity, so therefore the Holy Trinity is there too. The entire changing things, the bread and wine, are changed into the entire actuality of the Holy Trinity. And, wherever the Holy Trinity is, heaven and all the saints are also. So, where the apparent bread and wine are, heaven is, and thus all Justice and Love, the Good and Truth.

“As you have learned, the Father created the world, Goodness and Truth, from nothing. Thus, the Holy Trinity, the First Mover/Changer/Cause, can change objects to have a different essence, even the essence of the Holy Trinity Itself, such that Its apparent changing material is illusory. This Eucharist, the Holy Trinity, that you alone receive to eat and drink, is yours alone, such that even if you were the only person living in that moment, you would be the only one to eat and drink It. It transubstantiated for you alone. 

“Thus, Christ’s love, the love of the Holy Trinity, presents itself in life in a form humans can receive, individually, by the simple act of eating. The Holy Eucharist is present relentlessly, in a continuity, on earth, to allow you to sense it, to merge with it, and to enable you to know Him, and to bring the soul to eternal life.

“That is why those who hunger for righteousness are blessed, and will have their fill.

“Give us this day our daily bread: The Holy Trinity can entirely replace actuals, and out of love does so, in a gift such that individuals may simultaneously honor God, abide with God, and be granted God’s mercy.”

Scripture and Tradition 

Origins 

The Holy Bible ²

John 6

[41] The Jews therefore murmured at him, because he had said: I am the living bread which came down from heaven. [42] And they said: Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then saith he, I came down from heaven? [43] Jesus therefore answered, and said to them: Murmur not among yourselves. [44] No man can come to me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him; and I will raise him up in the last day. [45] It is written in the prophets: And they shall all be taught of God. Every one that hath heard of the Father, and hath learned, cometh to me.

[46] Not that any man hath seen the Father; but he who is of God, he hath seen the Father. [47] Amen, amen I say unto you: He that believeth in me, hath everlasting life. [48] I am the bread of life. [49] Your fathers did eat manna in the desert, and are dead. [50] This is the bread which cometh down from heaven; that if any man eat of it, he may not die. 

[51] I am the living bread which came down from heaven. [52] If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world. [53] The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat? [54] Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. [55] He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. 

[56] For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. [57] He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him. [58] As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. [59] This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eateth this bread, shall live for ever. [60] These things he said, teaching in the synagogue, in Capharnaum. 

[61] Many therefore of his disciples, hearing it, said: This saying is hard, and who can hear it? [62] But Jesus, knowing in himself, that his disciples murmured at this, said to them: Doth this scandalize you? [63] If then you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? [64] It is the spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life. [65] But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning, who they were that did not believe, and who he was, that would betray him.

[66] And he said: Therefore did I say to you, that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father. [67] After this many of his disciples went back; and walked no more with him.

1 Corinthians 10

[16] The chalice of benediction, which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread, which we break, is it not the partaking of the body of the Lord? [17] For we, being many, are one bread, one body, all that partake of one bread. 

Transubstantiation

The Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566) ¹

The Lord’s Prayer: Give us this day our Daily Bread - Christ Is Our Spiritual Bread, Especially in The Holy Eucharist

But Christ the Lord is especially our bread in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, in which He is substantially contained. This ineffable pledge of His love He gave us when about to return to the Father, and of it He said: He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him, Take ye and eat: this is my body. For matter useful to the faithful on this subject the pastor should consult what we have already said on the nature and efficacy of this Sacrament. The Eucharist is called our bread, because it is the food of the faithful only, that is to say, of those who, uniting charity to faith, wash away the defilement of their sins in the Sacrament of Penance, and mindful that they are the children of God, receive and adore this divine Sacrament with all possible holiness and veneration.

The Sacrament of the Eucharist: Peculiar Fitness of Bread and Wine

In the first place, then, [the bread and wine] signify to us Christ, as the true life of men; for our Lord Himself says: My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. As, then, the body of Christ the Lord furnishes nourishment unto eternal life to those who receive this Sacrament with purity and holiness, rightly is the matter composed chiefly of those elements by which our present life is sustained, in order that the faithful may easily understand that the mind and soul are satiated by the Communion of the precious body and blood of Christ.

The Sacrament of the Eucharist: Proof from The Dogma of The Real Presence

If, after consecration, the true body of Christ is present under the species of bread and wine, since it was not there before, it must have become present either by change of place, or by creation, or by the change of some other thing into it. It cannot be rendered present by change of place, because it would then cease to be in heaven; for whatever is moved must necessarily cease to occupy the place from which it is moved. Still less can we suppose the body of Christ to be rendered present by creation; nay, the very idea is inconceivable. In order that the body of our Lord be present in the Sacrament, it remains, therefore, that it be rendered present by the change of the bread into it. Wherefore it is necessary that none of the substance of the bread remain.

The Sacrament of the Eucharist: Transubstantiation A Total Conversion

This conversion, then, is so effected that the whole substance of the bread is changed by the power of God into the whole substance of the body of Christ, and the whole substance of the wine into the whole substance of His blood, and this, without any change in our Lord Himself. He is neither begotten, nor changed, not increased, but remains entire in His substance.

The Sacrament of the Eucharist: A Consequence of Transubstantiation

The substance of the bread is changed into the substance of Christ, not into magnitude or quantity; and substance, it will be acknowledged by all, is contained in a small as well as in a large space. The substance of air, for instance, and its entire nature must be present under a small as well as a large quantity, and likewise the entire nature of water must be present no less in a glass than in a river. Since, then, the body of our Lord succeeds to the substance of the bread, we must confess it to be in the Sacrament after the same manner as the substance of the bread was before consecration; whether the substance of the bread was present in greater or less quantity is a matter of entire indifference.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1995) ³

1374 The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as "the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend." [Aquinas] In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained." [Council of Trent] "This presence is called 'real' - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be 'real' too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present." [Paul IV]

1375 It is by the conversion of the bread and wine into Christ's body and blood that Christ becomes present in this sacrament. The Church Fathers strongly affirmed the faith of the Church in the efficacy of the Word of Christ and of the action of the Holy Spirit to bring about this conversion. Thus, St. John Chrysostom declares: “It is not man that causes the things offered to become the Body and Blood of Christ, but he who was crucified for us, Christ himself. The priest, in the role of Christ, pronounces these words, but their power and grace are God's. This is my body, he says. This word transforms the things offered. And St. Ambrose says about this conversion: “Be convinced that this is not what nature has formed, but what the blessing has consecrated. The power of the blessing prevails over that of nature, because by the blessing nature itself is changed… Could not Christ's word, which can make from nothing what did not exist, change existing things into what they were not before? It is no less a feat to give things their original nature than to change their nature.”

1376 The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: "Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation." [Council of Trent]

1380 It is highly fitting that Christ should have wanted to remain present to his Church in this unique way. Since Christ was about to take his departure from his own in his visible form, he wanted to give us his sacramental presence; since he was about to offer himself on the cross to save us, he wanted us to have the memorial of the love with which he loved us "to the end," [JN 13:1] even to the giving of his life. In his Eucharistic presence he remains mysteriously in our midst as the one who loved us and gave himself up for us, and he remains under signs that express and communicate this love: The Church and the world have a great need for Eucharistic worship. Jesus awaits us in this sacrament of love. Let us not refuse the time to go to meet him in adoration, in contemplation full of faith, and open to making amends for the serious offenses and crimes of the world. Let our adoration never cease.

St. Ignatius of Antioch ⁴

[Heretics] abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again.

St. Justin Martyr ⁵

And this food is called among us Ε?χαριστ?α [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, “This do in remembrance of Me, (Luke 22:19) this is My body;” and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, “This is My blood;” and gave it to them alone.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem ⁶

For as the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist before the holy invocation of the Adorable Trinity was simple bread and wine, while after the invocation the Bread becomes the Body of Christ, and the Wine the Blood of Christ.

St. Augustine ⁷

You ought to know what you have received, what you are about to receive, what you ought to receive every day. That bread which you can see on the altar, sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That cup, or rather what the cup contains, sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ. It was by means of these things that the Lord Christ wished to present us with his body and blood, which he shed for our sake for the forgiveness of sins. If you receive them well, you are yourselves what you receive. You see, the apostle says, We, being many, are one loaf, one body (1 Cor 10:17). That's how he explained the sacrament of the Lord's table; one loaf, one body, is what we all are, many though we be.

The Holy Mass

The Holy Bible ²

Matthew 26

[26] And whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke: and gave to his disciples, and said: Take ye, and eat. This is my body. [27] And taking the chalice, he gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: Drink ye all of this. [28] For this is my blood of the New Testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins. 

The Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566) ¹

The Sacrament of the Eucharist: The Mass Is the Same Sacrifice as That of The Cross

We therefore confess that the Sacrifice of the Mass is and ought to be considered one and the same Sacrifice as that of the cross, for the victim is one and the same, namely, Christ our Lord, who offered Himself, once only, a bloody Sacrifice on the altar of the cross. The bloody and unbloody victim are not two, but one victim only, whose Sacrifice is daily renewed in the Eucharist, in obedience to the command of our Lord: Do this for a commemoration of me.

The Sacrament of the Eucharist: The Rites and ceremonies of the Mass

The Sacrifice (of the Mass) is celebrated with many solemn rites and ceremonies, none of which should be deemed useless or superfluous. On the contrary, all of them tend to display the majesty of this august Sacrifice, and to excite the faithful when beholding these saving mysteries, to contemplate the divine things which lie concealed in the Eucharistic Sacrifice.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1995) ³

610 Jesus gave the supreme expression of his free offering of himself at the meal shared with the twelve Apostles "on the night he was betrayed". On the eve of his Passion, while still free, Jesus transformed this Last Supper with the apostles into the memorial of his voluntary offering to the Father for the salvation of men: "This is my body which is given for you." "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."

611 The Eucharist that Christ institutes at that moment will be the memorial of his sacrifice. Jesus includes the apostles in his own offering and bids them perpetuate it. By doing so, the Lord institutes his apostles as priests of the New Covenant: "For their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth."

1360 The Eucharist is a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Father, a blessing by which the Church expresses her gratitude to God for all his benefits, for all that he has accomplished through creation, redemption, and sanctification. Eucharist means first of all "thanksgiving."

1361 The Eucharist is also the sacrifice of praise by which the Church sings the glory of God in the name of all creation.

1362 The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ's Passover, the making present and the sacramental offering of his unique sacrifice, in the liturgy of the Church which is his Body. In all the Eucharistic Prayers we find after the words of institution a prayer called the anamnesis or memorial.

1365 Because it is the memorial of Christ's Passover, the Eucharist is also a sacrifice. the sacrificial character of the Eucharist is manifested in the very words of institution: "This is my body which is given for you" and "This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood." In the Eucharist Christ gives us the very body which he gave up for us on the cross, the very blood which he "poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."

1366 The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit: [Christ], our Lord and God, was once and for all to offer himself to God the Father by his death on the altar of the cross, to accomplish there an everlasting redemption. But because his priesthood was not to end with his death, at the Last Supper "on the night when he was betrayed," [he wanted] to leave to his beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice (as the nature of man demands) by which the bloody sacrifice which he was to accomplish once for all on the cross would be re-presented, its memory perpetuated until the end of the world, and its salutary power be applied to the forgiveness of the sins we daily commit.

References

1. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, (J.A McHugh, O.P., and C.J. Callan, Trans.), 1923, Middletown, DE [Original 1566]

2. The Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims Version, 2009, Saint Benedict Press [Original published 1582-1609]

3. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1995, Doubleday

4. St. Ignatius of Antioch, “The Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans,” [Online] Available from: https://www.catholica.com/epistle-of-ignatius-to-the-smyrnaeans/ [Original 110 A.D.]

5. St. Justin Martyr, “First Apology,” Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1., (Dods and George Reith, Marcus Trans.) (Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, Ed.), 1885, [Online] Available from: http://schutt.org/files/ebooks/justin_martyr-first_apology.pdf, Christian Literature Publishing [Original 155-157 A.D.]

6. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, The Catechetical Letters, John Henry Parker, J. G. F., and J. Rivington, Trans.), 1839, [Online] Available from: https://archive.org/details/a566189200cypruoft, Oxford [Original 348-350 A.D.]

7. St. Augustine, “Sermon 227”, [Online] Available from: https://stanselminstitute.org/files/SERMON%20227.pdf [Original 414-415 A.D.]