Catholic Review Online: Some Thoughts for Holy Thursday - Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien

In his weekly column in the Catholic Review, "Thoughts on Our Church," Archbishop O'Brien offers a meditation on the Eucharist.

Some days ago, I treated myself to a day of prayer centered on the sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist. In particular, I have over the years been struck by the profundity of recent papal meditations on this Mystery of Faith. This Holy Thursday I would like to offer you, without scholarly references, a sample of the sublimity of those meditations in the hope and prayer that this Lord’s Supper and every Mass in your future will draw you more deeply into this greatest mystery of all mysteries of God’s love.

In a much overlooked letter to all the bishops of the world, Pope John Paul II noted that, “Beginning with the Upper Room and Holy Thursday, the celebration of the Eucharist has a long history, a history as long as that of the Church … in the course of this history … there has been no change in ‘mysteries’ instituted by the Redeemer of the World at the Last Supper … for the Holy Thursday supper was a sacred rite, a primary and constitutive liturgy, through which Christ, by pledging to give His life for us, Himself celebrated sacramentally the mystery of His passion and resurrection, the heart of every Mass … the sacred character of the Mass is a sacredness instituted by Christ. The words and actions of every priest, answered by the conscious active participation of the whole Eucharistic assembly, echo the words and actions of Holy Thursday.”

This is a most radical declaration – that every Mass since the Last Supper, wherever and whenever celebrated, is dependent upon and in some way rooted and participative in the Last Supper of Jesus two millennia ago.

The very foundation of the Church is “closely bound up with the mystery of Holy Thursday,” as the twelve who constituted the first Church at the Last Supper, shared in the body and blood of the Lord. To appreciate this, it would help to cut to the very heart of Catholic worship called liturgy.

The meditation has even more to reflect upon. I urge you to read it in its entirety here!