Friday, Third Week of Easter

In today’s gospel reading Jesus declares ‘whoever eats me will draw life from me’. The Lord comes to us in the Eucharist so that we can live more fully with his life, which is a life of love. He gives himself to us in the Eucharist so that he can live in us, and continue his life of loving service today through us. The first reading is the story of how the risen Lord came to Paul. He didn’t come to Paul initially in the Eucharist but through an appearance to Paul. From that moment on, Paul began to live with the Lord’s own life, a life of loving service of others. Up until that moment, Paul had been violently persecuting the church, which he saw as a threat to his Jewish faith. As a result of the Lord’s appearance to him, he came to see that in persecuting the followers of Jesus he was persecuting Jesus himself who was God’s Son. From being the great persecutor of the church, Paul became the great preacher of the gospel to Jews and, especially, pagans. He went from being a violent person to being a peacemaker and reconciler. The Lord began to live in Paul. Some years later, in his letter to the Galatians, Paul could say, ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me’. The Lord was now living his life of loving service in and through Paul. The Lord does not appear to us in the same dramatic fashion as he appeared to Paul, but the same Lord comes to us in a very personal way at every Eucharist, so that he can live his life of loving service of others in and through each one of us today.