On the first day of the week — Sunday, the day on which the early Church gathered for the breaking of bread — Paul was at Troas with the community, preparing to leave the next day. Knowing it would be his farewell, Paul preached at the gathering in the upper room well into the night, until past midnight.
There were many lamps burning in the upper room (it was a long discourse). A young man named Eutychus ('Lucky'), seated in the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer; overcome by sleep, he fell from the third storey and was picked up dead. Paul went down, embraced him, and said: 'Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.' And the young man was carried away alive — and the community was greatly comforted. Paul went back upstairs and broke bread; they continued to converse until daybreak.
The episode is a wry self-aware Lucan note — the danger of falling asleep during a long Pauline sermon is here, in the founding period of the Church, given divine remedy. It is also, importantly, the earliest dated scriptural reference to the Sunday Eucharistic gathering and to the rhythm of an early Christian liturgical assembly.