Eucharistic Vigil
March 17th, 2009 by Br. James Brent, O.P.
On Monday, March 17 the Friars of the Dominican House of Studies held a Holy Hour in honor of St. Paul. For a slideshow, click here. Brother Ezra Sullivan, O.P. preached for the event, and the text of his remarks is included here:
The word of the Lord.
“For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you . . .” For centuries, this passage has been interpreted as St. Paul’s description of how Jesus Christ celebrated the first Eucharistic liturgy.
It has also been seen as St. Paul’s communication of specific liturgical rubrics. I suppose this means that St. Paul was the first Christian liturgist. And you know what they say about liturgists. Be that as it may, our focus here will not be on the historical or liturgical implications of 1 Cor 11; instead, we will focus on its personal implications. I would like to suggest that in speaking about the tradition of the Holy Eucharist, Paul is speaking not only about the body and blood of our Lord—Paul is also speaking about himself.
“For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.” What did Paul receive from the Lord? Well, everything. “By the grace of God,” Paul told the people of Corinth, “I am what I am.” And what was Paul? It seems to me that this passionate, zealous, God-fearing apostle was very much like King David as described in the first book of Samuel: “a man after God’s own heart.” In his early life, as we all know, Paul was a persecutor of the Church: ignorant of the Gospel, injurious to the body of Christ, and, as he said, the chief of sinners. But—and this is the saving grace—he acted out of a fervent love for God.
That is why if Paul was a zealous persecutor, he was even more a zealous convert. The Acts of the Apostles records that immediately after his baptism, Paul began to preach in the local synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God—and in doing so, he was risking his life. Here we find one of the many wonders in Paul’s life, for he who was a Pharisaical Jew became the Apostle to the Gentiles, and in him the persecutor became the persecuted. This was possible, Paul said, because God’s love had been poured into his heart through the Holy spirit, giving him the power to rejoice in his sufferings for the sake of others.
As worker in the Lord’s vineyard, a master-builder of God’s house, Paul realized in himself the truth proclaimed at the Second Vatican Council, that “man can fully discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself” (GS 24). Paul recognized that everything he had, everything he was, came to him as a gift from God. He, in turn, gave everything back to God. “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.” These words indicate the totality of Paul’s self-giving. As servant of Jesus Christ, Paul became a spiritual father to the children of God; so he suffered imprisonments, beatings, shipwrecks, frequent journeys, much danger, sleepless nights, hunger and thirst, cold and exhaustion, slander and misunderstanding. For the sake of their salvation, this ardent man went to great lengths to become all things to all people that God might at least save some. We find Paul rebuking the sinner, exhorting the fainthearted, encouraging the weak, teaching the ignorant, pleading with the fallen away, preaching to the hard of heart. In his words, he was a libation poured out, carrying in his body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus could be made manifest. Briefly put, this man who called himself the “least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, the refuse of the world,” this man, in giving himself to God, gave himself to the Church. He did this only because he was personally convinced that Christ first gave himself to Paul. “The life I now live in the flesh,” he told the Galatians, “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
If we are to understand Paul’s Eucharistic theology, then, we can see that it is not only historical, “This is what Christ did,” it is actual: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Paul’s self-giving was an extension of Christ’s self-giving. Paul’s love is Christ’s love. Paul’s life was Eucharistic to its core, for he knew that the cup of blessing is a participation in the blood of Christ, the broken bread is a participation in the body of Christ, and a life of suffering can be a participation in the love of Christ. Thus, when Paul recalled how at the first Eucharist Jesus said to his disciples, “This is my body which is for you,” Paul spoke about his own self-giving. “This is my body, my life,” Paul was saying to the early Church, “given for you.” But Paul, in imitation of Jesus, did not just give himself to people in ancient Palestine: his sacrificial self-giving extends to us even now. He says to us today, repeating the words of the Jesus, “This is me, given for you.” His words should also be our words. Like Paul’s life, all Christian life is Eucharistic to its core. To live a Pauline life is to live a Christ-like life—and that means to live a Eucharistic life. Therefore, Paul exhorts us to live in a Eucharistic, self-giving way, just as he did: “Be imitators of me,” he tells us, “as I am of Christ. I appeal to you, brethren, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, for this is your spiritual worship.” Amen.
