Throughout the Easter
season we repeatedly hear Gospel accounts of the Risen Jesus sharing meals with
his disciples. On the road to Emmaus, for example, we read that Jesus “took
bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them” (Luke 24:13–35). The evangelists
clearly intend us to recognise in these moments the early Eucharistic life of
the Christian community.
A century later, Saint Justin Martyr—born in Flavia Neapolis (modern‑day Nablus, north of Jerusalem) around the turn of the first century and martyred in Rome about AD 165—gives us one of the earliest detailed descriptions of how the Eucharist was celebrated following baptism (First Apology, 65–67). He explains that:
