(c.130-202) Priest, and then bishop in Lyon (now France), Saint Irenaeus was a disciple of Saint Polycarp, who was a disciple of Saint John the Apostle. He was a Greek from Asia Minor during the reign of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who persecuted the Christians. Irenaeus was an excellent theologian and writer, emphasising the unity of the Old and New Testaments and opposing Gnosticism. One of the first great ecclesiastical writers and a man of heroic virtue, Saint Irenaeus is also called a Doctor of the Church (formally declared in 2022) and a Father of the Church.

Irenaeus was a disciple of a disciple of an Apostle. We are grateful for our predecessors in our Catholic faith and recovery. We are not looking to invent a new religion or craft our own recovery program. We seek the truth, then follow. Trying to invent either on our own has led many to relapse or worse, utter disaster.

“For you did not make God, but God you. If, then, you are God’s workmanship, await the hand of your Maker which creates everything in due time” (Saint Irenaeus, Against Heresies, IV, 39, 2).