Dear Friend, 

Reflection by Rev. Mariusz Eugene Koch, C.F.R.

The Upper Room

In 1440 Fra Angelico, the great Dominican artist, and Saint painted a series of frescos depicting the Gospels in the cells where the friars slept. In cell number 35, Fra Angelico painted a depiction of the Last Supper entitled “The communion of the Apostles”. It is only 78 by 97 inches in size, but the painting in its simplicity and stark beauty captures the wonder and mystery of the “Last Supper” and the precious gift given to the Church, the gift of Christ Himself.

It was Pope John Paul II who beatified Fra Angelico and named him “Patron Saint of Artists”. It is therefore especially significant that St. Pope John Paul would invite priests to enter the “Upper Room” every Holy Thursday to renew their love for the Eucharist and the precious gift of the priesthood.

In his letter to priests for Holy Thursday in 2000 the Holy Father wrote during his pilgrimage to the Holy Land:

“From the Upper Room I would like to address this letter to you as I have done for more then twenty years, on Holy Thursday, the day of the Eucharist and “our” day par excellence. I am indeed writing to you from the Upper Room, thinking back to all that took place within these walls on that evening charged with mystery. Spiritually, I see Jesus and the Apostles seated at table with Him. I think of Peter especially; it is as if I can see him, with all the other disciples, watching in amazement the Lord’s actions, listening with deep emotion to His words and, for all the burden of his frailty, opening himself to the mystery proclaimed here and soon to be accomplished. These are the hours of the great battle between the love which gives itself without reserve and the “mysterium iniquitatis” which is imprisoned in mortality.”

St. Pope John Paul ends his Holy Thursday “Letter to Priests” with these moving words:  “From the Upper Room, I embrace you in the Eucharist. May the image of Christ, surrounded by His own at the Last Supper fill each of us with a vibrant sense of brotherhood and communion…”

Then the Holy Father invites us to join the Saints in “leaning their head, as it were like John, on the Lord’s breast.” (Jn 13-25) “Here in fact, we come to the height of love, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”

At each celebration of Holy Mass, we enter the Upper Room. May we as well “listen with deep emotion to His words” and in spite of our frailty open ourselves to the “mystery proclaimed and accomplished!”

Amen

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Reverend Mariusz Eugene Koch, C.F.R., M.A. is a Spiritual Director and Adjunct Professor of Pastoral Theology at Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology.