The most recent issue of the Adoremus Bulletin arrived the other day, and so I have been reading through it over the past few days. One of the articles, entitled Eucharistic Adoration and Political Responsibility: Looking at the World through Eyes That Adore the Blessed Sacrament, by Archbishop Augustine Di Noia, OP, the Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, is particularly good. Early on in the article there is a paragraph which I think is quite beautiful and worth sharing. He says:
During Eucharistic adoration, it is not only we who behold Christ, but it is also He who beholds us. When we adore the Blessed Sacrament, we are not just gazing at a beautiful but inert object. The conteplative mode of prayer that we learn during adoration presupposes that Christ returns our gaze.
What an amazing reality! Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, gazes at us when we come before Him in adoration! Who in their right mind would not want to be in the gaze of God?
Adoration is one of the things that I miss here. I am sad to say it, but even the campus of a Catholic Seminary, there is rarely Adoration. The seminary I attended (Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in St. Louis) had Adoration every day, but here, no such thing. If I want to go to go to Expostition or Benediction I have to go to Marytown, or some other parish that offers it. But it is worth the effort. To find myself in the gaze of the Son of God is very worth it. So if you live near a parish that had Adoration, go. Allow yourself the opportunity to sit in the presence of Jesus and recieve the love He desires to pour out into your heart.
1 comment:
I am blessed to be in a parish that has Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration. My weekly hour is the best hour of my week (next to Mass).
I also believe that because we have perpetual Adoration, it is in large part the driving force behind a thriving parish.
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