«Like the woman who anointed Jesus in Bethany, the Church has feared no ‘extravagance‘, devoting the best of her resources to expressing her wonder and adoration before theunsurpassable gift of the Eucharist. No less than the first disciples charged with preparing the ‘large upper room,‘ she has felt the need, down the centuries and in her encounters with different cultures, to celebrate the Eucharist in a setting worthy of so great a mystery» (John Paul II, Encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia, EE, April 17, 2003, no. 48).

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