The saints and the martyrs understood these Scriptures very well to mean to avoid false worship. Millions of martyrs gave up their blood rather than take part in protestant worship, or offer even so much as a pinch of incense to a false god. St. Alphonsus said that in the first 300 years of the Church, there were 11 million martyrs. All these martyrs were dying for the Catholic faith. They all believed in the Eucharist as being the real flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. The Church has taught this for 2,000 years. All the Gospels speak of Jesus in the Eucharist, even St. Paul in 1st Corinthians chapter 10 and 11. In 10:16 St. Paul says, “The chalice of benediction which we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? And the bread we break, is it not the partaking of his body?” If you’re sharing a beer with someone, are you sharing a beer or a coke? It is nonsense and blasphemy for protestants to deny the literal meaning of Jesus’ words, but many will do so anyway to their own damnation, rather than admit they’re wrong. This is the sin of pride. A humble man will acknowledge the truth when it’s made known to him. When we outrightly deny a truth revealed by God, we are no longer Christian, but a heretic, * being condemned by our own judgement. “[10] A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid:[11] Knowing that he, that is such an one, is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned by his own judgment.” Titus 3:10-11. Because by disbelieving what Jesus said, we make him a liar. “He that believeth not the Son, maketh him a liar: because he believeth not in the testimony which God hath testified of his Son.” 1 St. John, ch. 5. We are no longer in the grace of God, but under his wrath, and worthy of hell fire. “He that believeth not the Son, shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” St. John 3:36.
St. Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of St. John, was a bishop. St. Alphonsus said that in one of his writings he spoke of Jesus in the Eucharist: “I take no pleasure in the food of corruption, nor in the enjoyment of this life. I desire the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, and for drink his blood…” But during this time heretics did not cease to trouble the Church; this is the reason why the saint, writing to the faithful of Smyrna, recommended them not to have any communication with them: “Be satisfied,” he said to them, “with merely praying to God for those who abstain from the Eucharist, because they deny it to be the flesh of Jesus Christ, who died for our sins.” He died around the year 110 A.D. All the early Fathers of the Church wrote and believed in the Eucharist as being the real flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. St. Augustine had this to say: “Not only do we not sin when we adore the Eucharist, but we do sin when we do not adore the Eucharist.” If it was only a wafer, yes we would sin by adoring it because it would be idolatry. Yet, all the evidence is in our favor. The Church has always taught it; the Holy Bible reaffirms it; the Eucharistic miracles prove it, and all the Fathers of the Church taught it. Even the protestant Bible affirms the teaching of the Church, but the heretics, as St. Peter said, wrestle with the scriptures to their own destruction. “[16] As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction.” 2 Peter, chap. 3.
I know two men, and two women, from two different families, all of them former Catholics, who apostatized from the faith, all of them proud and cannot admit they’re wrong, even when presented with overwhelming evidence to the contrary, who now distort the scriptures as St. Peter said, and as St. Jude said, “They blaspheme majesty,” 1:8; that is, Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, professing themselves to be wise and holy, yet denying God’s power to change the bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood: “”Having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid.” [2 Timothy 3:5]. If our bodies can take bread and wine and change them into our flesh and blood, why can’t Jesus take bread and wine and change it into his body and blood?
As noted above, St. Ignatius, one of the early Fathers of the Church, among many, shows the early Church believed in the Eucharist as Catholics do today. ‘’St. James, (not the Apostle), surnamed Intercisus, in the 400’s, near the year 420, was martyred for the faith. But before doing so, a fierce persecution broke out in Persia. James, overcome by the fear of losing his property and the honors he enjoyed at court, obeyed the iniquitous decree. But his mother and his wife, most exemplary Christians, who were then absent, having heard of his fall, wrote to him a letter, in which, after exhorting him to repair his grievous error, they said, “If thou wilt not return to the good path from which thou hast departed, we shall treat thee as a stranger, and separate from thee; it behooveth us not to have any communication with one who hath abandoned his God to please men, and to secure to himself the perishable things of this life, which will cause him to perish everlastingly.”
James, whose conscience continually upbraided him for his apostasy, was strongly affected by the letter; and he began to reflect that if his nearest relatives began thus to reproach him, how much more would he have to fear the censure of the Eternal Judge. While he bewailed the publicity of his sin, he resolved that his repentance should be equally notorious, and took frequent occasion to express himself in the following terms: “I am a Christian, and I repent that I have abandoned the faith of Jesus Christ.”
The king upon hearing this was much enraged, and considering himself personally offended by the insult offered to the gods whom he adored, ordered him to be conducted to his presence. The saint appeared before the tyrant, who reproached him with fickleness, and threatened him with the most cruel death unless he immediately sacrificed to the gods of the Persians. But the saint replied that he was a Christian, that he sincerely repented of his apostasy, and that he wished to continue no longer unfaithful to God. The tyrant, in transports of rage, commanded that his body should be chopped to pieces, limb by limb, in order, as he said, that others might be deterred from following his example.
The saint intrepidly offered himself to this horrible torture. The executioners first cut off the thumb of his right hand, telling him that if he would obey the king his torments should cease there. But James was anxious to give his life for Jesus Christ, and to repair the scandal he had given by having denied him; presenting, therefore, each limb to the executioners; he suffered them to be cut off, joint by joint, without a moan. The faithful witnessed his martyrdom with great edification, until, his body being reduced to a mere trunk, his head was struck off. This happened on the 27th of November, in the year 420, and from the nature of his martyrdomhe was called Intercisus, that is , cut to pieces.” – From THE VICTORIES OF THE MARTYRS, by St. Alphonsus Maria de La Liguori, Ch. IX. How many millions of Catholics in our time, have abandoned the true faith of Jesus Christ, and run off to the protestant churches. End of Part 1.
Part 2
Thomas Colton, a young teen-age boy of the English Reformation, endured terrible sufferings for his faith in the reign of Elizabeth !. He refused to mitigate those sufferings by so much as setting foot in a protestant church! He said, “If I should go inside your church, I should sin against God, and the peace and unity of the whole Catholic Church, exclude myself from the holy sacraments, and be in danger to die in my sins like a heathen. But although I am a poor lad, I have a soul to save as well as any other Catholic.” As Our Lord Jesus Christ warned, “If he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican.” St.Matthew 18:17. Drbo.org. The heathen is a godless man, and the publican is a public sinner, and Jesus said we would be in a class with them if we leave the Church. This is a threat of damnation, theologians tell us. Father Arnold Damen explains it here: The One True Church, https://www.olrl.org/apologetics/. And if anyone still believes the Holy Bible is the guide Jesus gave us to heaven, I encourage them to read The Church or the Bible from the same link. Fr. Damen gives irrefutable proof the Bible is not our guide to heaven.
THE LITTLE GIRL AND THE BLANKET: HER SOUL WAS IN HEAVEN! : A very wonderful thing happened in one of the central towns of Ireland. The Soupers, one morning, made a bargain with a poor woman that they would give her a blanket, and that she should send her little Bridget to the Soupers’ school. Bridget was a very good child, and went to the school of the Sisters of Mercy. In the afternoon little Bridget came home from the convent. “Bridget,’ said the mother, “the Soupers came here this morning , and said that if I would send you to the Souper’s school they would give me a blanket.” “I am sure you sent them away mother?” said Bridget. “No,” said the mother, “we are very poor, so I promised that I would send you .” “What!” answered Bridget, “do you really mean that I must go to the Soupers’ school and become a protestant for a blanket? The nuns told me that Jesus Christ bought my soul with his precious blood; and you let the Soupers buy it with a blanket?” “No matter,” said the mother, “you must be ready to go to the Soupers’ school tomorrow at ten o’clock.” The child turned pale as death, and sank on her knees; she lifted up her little hands and eyes to heaven, and prayed thus: “Dear Blessed Virgin Mary, the nuns always told me that you are my good Mother, and that you love me; then, for the sake of the Infant Jesus, do not let me go to the Soupers’ school and become a protestant; let me die rather than be a protestant.” The mother sent the child to bed. The next morning the mother called to her to get up and be ready to go to the Soupers’ school; but there was no answer from the child; she was dead! The Blessed Virgin had heard her prayer, and her soul was in heaven. STORIES FROM THE CATECHIST,# 403.
St. John Rigby
Among the glorious martyrs who suffered for the faith during the cruel persecution, of Queen Elizabeth was a Lancashire gentleman of a good but reduced family, named John Rigby. Having been obliged in consequence of his own straightened circumstances to take service in a gentleman’s household, he was unhappily prevailed upon through fear and human respect to frequent occasionally the Protestant church. At a later period, entering into himself, he bitterly bewailed his past weakness, and was reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance. (Nowadays, Catholics don’t think anything about going to protestant churches for weddings or whatever). Some time afterwards, having occasion to present himself to Old Bailey to answer for his mistress who had been summoned on the grounds of religion, but was unable through sickness to appear, he was himself charged with being a Catholic, which he gladly acknowledged, and was accordingly condemned to death in virtue of a law lately enacted, which made it treason to be reconciled to God by the ministry of a Catholic priest.
Upon hearing his sentence read, which condemned him to be hanged, cut down alive, bowelled and quartered, he cried with great joy: “Thanks be to God. It is all but one death, and a flea-bite in comparison to that which it pleased my Sweet Saviour Jesus to suffer for my salvation.” Though he was repeatedly offered his life in case he would go to the protestant church, he always courageously refused, saying, “It is not lawful! I will not go! I desire and look for the day of my execution, but think myself unworthy to die for so good a cause.”
It is related in the history of his trial that upon one occasion the judge ordered him to be loaded with a pair of heavy shackles. The shackles being brought, the holy confessor of the faith kisses them, and signed them with the Sign of the Cross before they were riveted to his legs. After he had stood in them for a while the irons fell to the ground, at which he smiled, and bade his keeper rivet them on faster. Soon after they again fell off, upon which he told them to make them faster still, for, he said, “I esteem them as jewels too precious to be lost.” This extraordinary circumstance he looked upon as a token that his soul should soon be set free from the prison of the body. And so in fact it happened, for his execution, which had been long delayed, took place two days afterwards. As he was being tied to the hurdle to be taken to the scaffold, he said, “Bear witness with me, all good people, that I am now forthwith to give my life only for the Catholic cause.” – Stories from The Catechist, # 397 & Martyrs of the Reformation, page VIII. St. Dominic Savio, who died at age 15, used to have a motto: “DEATH RATHER THAN SIN!”…to be continued. See the attitude of the saints and martyrs? What faith were they dying for? The Catholic faith.