Meeting God in the Upper Room

A book tagged as a future spiritual classic should inform, encourage, heal and nourish the inner spirit but it should also challenge the reader to grow spiritually. Msgr. Vaghi does exactly that as he discusses the history and importance of the Upper Room based on Gospel accounts as well as meditating on prophecy, sacraments, and Catholic social teaching. Through detailed analysis of Scripture and by asking insightful questions, Vaghi engages the reader and draws him into the narrative, sparking curiosity and encouraging personal reflection.

Preparing Your Upper Room

Then, every chapter ends with a challenge entitled “Preparing Your Upper Room” because the Upper Room is not simply a historical place, it is a holy space, “an icon of the fruitful Church and its fruitfulness continues in and through each and every believer.” Monsignor Peter J. Vaghi calls the Upper Room, or the Cenacle, “the most important room in Christendom” because the Church was birthed in this humble space with the institution of the Last Supper, the Resurrection appearances to the disciples, and the fall of the Holy Spirit during Pentecost. In the Upper Room believers “were given a new understanding of God’s love and the revolutionary power of the Holy Spirit was unleashed.” Just as the disciples were transformed by the power of the Resurrected Christ in the Cenacle, the reader is also invited to encounter Jesus’s transforming love and answer a personal call to discipleship. For:

. . . one need not travel to the Holy Land to encounter Christ. Inside each of us is an ‘upper room,’ where we experience the living presence of God. Wherever we are, whenever we take the time to find and speak and listen to God, we can experience his life-giving, sacramental, and transformative presence.