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To be able to offer Him and to offer ourselves with Him
This year Holy Thursday will be experienced by many in a very different way in this time of pandemic. Many are confined and will not be able to participate concretely in a Eucharistic Celebration. Our outlook changes in this time of being deprived of Mass and sacramental communion, especially on this great day of Holy Thursday when we celebrate the institution of the Eucharist. This situation can deepen in us the desire to live the Eucharist once again. Let us take this opportunity to meditate and deepen our understanding of the mystery of the Eucharist. Here is an excerpt from a talk by Mother Julienne du Rosaire on Holy Thursday (1976) that can help us. If we cannot receive communion sacramentally, we can always offer ourselves as a spiritual gift, united to Christ's unique offering, in the Masses celebrated in the world.
May this Holy Thursday be a special one for you!
" Before immolating himself in the very reality of his physical being, he (Jesus) expresses symbolically the drama he will experience tomorrow. Carried forward by his love, he already makes present, under the sign of broken bread, his body dug plowed into by whips, his hands and feet pierced by nails; and under the sign of the wine poured into the cup, his blood shed to the last drop... And he offers to his Father this martyrdom which he will undergo in a few hours. Thanks to this mysterious institution, this precious blood, shed once and for all, always alive and always fruitful, crosses the centuries and flows unceasingly over our earth, washing in its streams the sins of successive generations.
It is not only to his apostles that he says: "What I do, you must also do it", but to all of us who have been baptized, and who are therefore clothed with his royal priesthood, that is to say, with the power to offer him and to offer ourselves with him. On Calvary he plays the plunges alone into the reality; but by virtue of his shed blood we become his members and share in his redemptive work. What an eminent responsibility we have! Do we think about it enough? "
Mother Julienne du Rosaire, April 15, 1976