24th week in Ordinary Time, Monday, Sept.18, 2006

Scripture: I Cor.11:17-26,33. Psalm 40:7-10,17. Luke 7:1-10.

Sometimes we learn about the most sacred events and moments in life by some negative circumstances that bring them about. Paul is confronting the Corinthians about their behavior during a most sacred celebration of what was known as an Agape Feast. It was centered on Jesus' words at the Last Supper when he gave himself as bread and wine at a Passover meal. It was a new creation on his part and now is the Sacrament of his Presence among us in consecrated bread and wine at the Eucharist. Unfortunately, the Corinthians turned this into a selfish gathering of people who were similar to them in thought and who even became drunk at this meal. We can imagine Paul's anger and frustration at such a gathering into factions. The Agape Meal was supposed to be a feast of joy, love, unity, and peace. They were making it a party at which only favored friends could share and moreover,ey were getting drunk at it.

For us today, the value of this passage from Paul, is that he returns to what he had received about the Lord's words and their implementation in the Eucharist. It happens to be the earliest reference to the "words of institution" pronounced clearly by Jesus at the Last Supper. This passage antecedes those of the written Gospel and the symbolic chapter six on the Eucharist in John's Gospel. Paul writes this most likely in 56 A.D. The other accounts give us the formula and context for the celebration of the Eucharist; they are found in the following parts of the New Testament (Mark 14:22-25; Matthew 26:26-29; Luke 22:15-20; John 6:51-59). Paul also focuses on the Eucharist here in I Cor.11:23-26 and also in I Cor.10:16-17.

Was this a Passover meal that then became for Christians the celebration of the Sacrament of the Eucharist? It could be, for Paul, in what looks like a Christian midrash applies the event of the Passover in Exodus to Jesus' being sacrificed. We must remember this is before the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 A.D. Paul interprets the Eucharist for the people of Corinth in this way: "Your boasting is not a good thing. Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." Paul was speaking the truth for the Christians at Corinth--the truth about how the Eucharist is to be celebrated. (I Cor. 5:6-8). The Paschal Lamb was sacrificed in the Temple before 70 A.D. and Paul shows us the parallel to what Jesus was doing at the Last Supper.