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 o