Drinking the Cup of the Lord’s Love – Fulgentius

Fulgentius of Ruspe reflects upon the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Eucharist.  In in imitating the death of our Lord we should walk in newness of life by the power of the Holy Spirit.

When we offer the sacrifice the words of our Savior are fulfilled just as the blessed Apostle Paul reported them: On the same night he was betrayed the Lord Jesus took some bread, and thanked God for it and broke it, and said: ‘This is my body, which is for you: do this as a memorial of me.’ In the same way he took the cup after supper, and said, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me.’ Until the Lord comes, therefore, every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are proclaiming his death [1 Corinthians 11:23-26].

Offering the Sacrifice of the Eucharist

So the sacrifice is offered to proclaim the death of the Lord and to be a commemoration of him who laid down his life for us. He himself has said: A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends [John 15:13].

So, since Christ died for us, out of love, it follows that when we offer the sacrifice in commemoration of his death, we are asking for love to be given us by the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Imitating the Death of the Lord

We beg and we pray that just as through love Christ deigned to be crucified for us, so we may receive the grace of the Holy Spirit; and that by that grace the world should be a dead thing in our eyes and we should be dead to the world, crucified and dead.

We pray that we should imitate the death of our Lord. Christ, when he died, died, once for all, to sin, so his life now is life with God. We pray, therefore, that in imitating the death of our Lord we should walk in newness of life, dead to sin and living for God.

Sharing in the Lord’s Bread & Cup

The love of God is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who has been sent to us [Romans 5:5]. When we share in the Lord’s body and blood, when we eat his bread and drink his cup, this truly means that we die to the world and have our hidden life with Christ in God, crucifying our flesh and its weaknesses and its desires.

Drinking the Cup of the Lord’s Love

Thus it is that all the faithful who love God and their neighbor drink the cup of the Lord’s love even if they do not drink the cup of bodily suffering. Soaked through with that drink, they mortify the flesh in which they walk this earth. Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ like a cloak, their desires are no longer those of the body. They do not contemplate what can be seen but what is invisible to the eyes.

This is how the cup of the Lord is drunk when divine love is present; but without that love, you may even give your body to be burned and still it will do you no good [1 Corinthians 13: 1-3]. What the gift of love gives us is the chance to become in truth what we celebrate as a mystery in the sacrifice.

For more resources on the Eucharist, see the Eucharist Library of the Crossroads Initiative.

This reading is from a treatise against Fabianus by Saint Fulgentius of Ruspe.  It tells us that we are made holy by sharing in the offering of the holy sacrifice of the mass and by sharing in Christ’s body and the cup of the Lord’s love blood in the Eucharist. It appears in the Roman Catholic Office of readings for Monday in the 28h week in ordinary time.  The accompanying biblical reading is from the prophet Haggai 2:11-24.

Banner/featured image by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash. Public domain.

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