Confirming (phase 3), - The Last Supper – First Part (step 22) - session 6

1 Cor 11:17-34

We close this step with the Last Supper account provided by St. Paul, and the retreat provides more context by including more verses than those we will hear during mass tonight, it is a good idea to consider them in the larger arc which follows. Many of us are familiar with chapters 12-14 of this great epistle. In chapter 12, St. Paul talks about the pervasiveness of the Holy Spirit in every believer and the diverse gifts the Spirit provides for the building up of Christ's body, the Church. Chapter 13 is the one we hear from at many weddings, emphasizing that no spiritual gift is in its proper place without being rooted in love, and takes time to expound on love's characteristics, which the reading of this session makes clear that the Corinthians were missing in their gathering and in their relationship with one another in the Church. Chapter 14 is probably best known in charismatic circles, where the operation of the spiritual gifts must be kept in proper order or our gatherings descend into our personal agendas. Even if these may be legitimately God's will for our lives, sometimes we mistakenly try to impose them on our entire group.

So this discussion is kicked off by the verses for this session:

But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. - (11:17)

This sets a serious tone for the conversation that is to follow. This is to be a direction adjustment for their gatherings. The subsequent verses speak of the factions that have arisen and the disregard that members of the church have for others' circumstances or needs (18-22) and for their gifts (chapter 12). To convey the severity of this problem, St. Paul then invokes the Last Supper (23-26), and the institution of the Eucharist, which had already by this time been recognized as more than a mere remembrance of Jesus' sacrifice but rather as an actual participation in it. This was compatible with the millenia-old participation of the Jewish people in the Passover by their celebration of the meal, in which they remember that "this is the night on which we" - not our forefathers, but we ourselves - "were delivered from our slavery." So likewise, in our partaking of the bread and wine of Eucharist we participate in the sacrifice by which he delivers us from the death of our sin into new life in him. But the Corinthians were failing to understand the depth of there remembrance, treating it as a casual recounting of decades-old events, failing to properly esteem one another as co-recipients of this unfathomable gift of grace, and failing to appreciate the ways that God is at work in their fellow believers, judging themselves as more important than others.

How often do we judge our fellow believers in similar ways? The use of St. John's account in tonight's liturgy is intended to address that, and understanding this wider context of the reading from St. Paul may help me grasp that more fully.