United in Christ – the eucharistic witness of Saints Peter and Paul

Today is the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles. St Peter, the first among the Apostles, was the rock on which Jesus built his Church. Saint Paul was the Apostle who, in a particular way, brought the Gospel to the Gentiles. Both ended their lives in Rome, where they were martyred.

Tradition recognises Peter as having oversight of the early Christian community, and as the first Bishop of Rome, the beginning of a line of bishops who would lead the Church there and exercise a ministry of unity and oversight among all the churches throughout the world.

In his letters to the Church in Corinth, St Paul provides us with vital insight into the very early understanding and practice of the Eucharist:

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. (1 Corinthians 10:16–17)

In the following chapter (1 Corinthians 11:23–26), he gives what we know as the ‘institution narrative’, central to the Eucharistic Prayer:

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

This account of the institution of the Eucharist likely predates the accounts found in the Gospels, which were written not long afterwards. All these accounts are rooted in the living oral tradition and shared faith of the early Church.

Peter and Paul were very different in character and came to faith in different ways; yet they shared the same faith and the same mission: to make God’s love known so that all might be saved. Together, they handed on the richness of the Gospel and the sacramental life of the Church, at the heart of which is the Eucharist, the sacrament of unity.

Peter denied Christ three times and repented; Paul persecuted Christ’s followers, but was converted and became an Apostle.

We too are called to be apostles in our own way—passing on the faith and living the reality of the Eucharistic sacrifice that has nourished the Church through the ages.