The faithful are to hold the Eucharist in highest honor… worshiping it with supreme adoration. (Code of Canon Law – #898)
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel is a place of deep reverence towards God. Thus, silence is the traditional norm. Additionally, genuflecting , kneeling, and bowing before our Eucharistic Lord are important ways to pay our homage outwardly. There are many ways to adore Christ inwardly during your holy hour of prayer. It is best to let God’s Holy Spirit guide you in this manner. However, if you are new to adoration, you may find it easier to focus your holy hour on the greatest commandment. In Holy Scripture, Jesus states that the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. In light of this, follow these practices: Love God with all your heart: Spend some quiet time just thanking God and meditating on the goodness, blessings, and love God has shown you. Pour your heart out to God with love and humility. This will help strengthen the bond of your personal relationship with Christ. Love God with all your soul: Take time to communicate your intentions before God. Your holy hour is a beautiful time to pray the rosary, the chaplet of divine mercy, or just a sincere prayer that is in your heart. For more information on powerful prayers to pray in God’s Presence, click on the link in our prayer section. Love God with all your mind: A holy hour is a good time to meditate and reflect on God’s Holy Word in the Bible. The adoration chapel also has a collection of various spiritual books that can help you draw closer to God and inspire your spirit. Love God with all your strength: Committing to spending an hour with God on a weekly basis takes a lot of strength and fortitude of spirit, because there are so many demands and temptations in today’s busy world that pull us in many other directions. However, spending time with Jesus brings great spiritual rewards. What could be more important than time alone with God? Adorer Testimony
I am not a cradle Catholic but a convert to the faith. I was raised in the Baptist church. However, as a child, I was also blessed to attend the Catholic school at St. Hyacinth for two years until my parents could no longer afford it. Still, to this day, I remember enjoying the Catholic Mass at St. Hyacinth as a child, despite it being very different from the worship style of our Baptist church. There was a quietness and serenity that permeated throughout the holy Mass which my young mind could not understand. All I could remember was that I loved it, because it brought peace to my soul. I know now that Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament was the wellspring that inspired that inner peace in my heart.
Later, I lived my young adult life away from church. However, as I got older, I searched for church again and at last came back home to the Catholic Church. Do you know what is so beautiful? That same peace and beauty I felt as a child is the same that I feel now when I adore Christ in the Eucharistic Adoration Chapel. I’ve always felt the closest to God in the silence when we pray before Him in the Blessed Sacrament. The Scripture verse, “Be still and know that I am God” in Psalms 46:10, has definitely proven to be true in my personal prayer life of Eucharistic Adoration.
I always feel the greatest connection to God when I’m surrounded by the peacefulness of His Presence and can discern His voice or promptings the most vividly. It reminds me of the beautiful biblical narrative of Elijah (1 Kings 19:11-18) when He couldn’t hear God’s voice in the loud noises like the noisy wind, earthquake, or fire, but His voice came to him like a still, quiet, and gentle whisper.
Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is truly “The Prince of Peace” I have been searching for throughout my life. Eucharistic Adoration gives you peace unlike anything else this world has to offer.
John 14:27 – Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
Isaiah 9:6 – For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Adorer Testimony
When I reflect upon one of Christ’s names, Immanuel, I feel such joy knowing that it means “God with us”! This is exactly what Jesus is in the Blessed Sacrament. He is God with us under the appearance of wine and bread. I know this is true for 3 reasons: First, Jesus promised and foretold it in Scripture, like in John 6:48-59. Second, the saints and the Holy Catholic Church teachings also confirm this fact. Lastly, the third reason I know He is truly present in the Eucharist is that I have been blessed with so many answered prayers as an adorer.
For example, have you ever prayed for someone’s conversion to the faith, and it seemed like the prayers were not being answered? I have. Several years ago, I prayed daily for my Mom’s conversion. I never understood why my prayers did not seem to be answered. Around 3 years ago, I became my mom’s caregiver. Since I was an adorer, I got into the practice of sometimes taking my mom with me to adoration. During this time, I never talked about my faith or tried to convince her to join. I had given that up years previously, because my mother had always had a strong opinion against the Catholic faith.
We got into the habit of spending quiet time alone before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament on a regular basis. I will never forget the day my mom said out of the blue that she wants to become Catholic. Again, I had not been evangelizing to her or even continuing to pray fervently that she would be converted. The only thing I was doing on a regular basis was taking her to adoration, where we both spent quiet time before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament!
I have other beautiful testimonies of how God has blessed and touched my life since I have been praying to Him during the Blessed Sacrament. He is the source of everything good, holy, and worthy of praise in my life. He has added so much beauty to my life. He has given me so much that I do not deserve, because God knows I am so unworthy and imperfect.
Please consider visiting Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, our Immanuel, “God with us.” Just because He is not in human form does not make Him any less Divine. Remember this beautiful Scripture verse that Jesus stated to doubting Thomas:
John 20:29 – Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
For further inquiries or more information, please contact the Most Blessed Sacrament Parish Office at 419-472-2288
John 6: 25-59
Jesus the Bread of Life
25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
26 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’[c]”
32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”
35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
41 At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”
43 “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’[d] Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. 46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
“The devotion to the Eucharist is the most noble because it has God as its object; it is the most profitable for salvation, because It gives us the Author of Grace; it is the sweetest, because the Lord is Sweetness Itself,”
– St. Pius X
“When you look at the Crucifix, you understand how much Jesus loved you then. When you look at the Sacred Host you understand how much Jesus loves you now,”
– St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta
“Look upon the hour of adoration assigned to you as an hour in paradise. Go to your adoration as one would to heaven, to the divine banquet. You will then long for that hour and hail it with joy. Take delight in fostering a longing for it in your heart. Tell yourself, “In four hours, in two hours, in one hour, our Lord will give me an audience of grace and love. He has invited me; he is waiting for me; he is longing for me.”
– St. Peter Julian Eymard
Here are some prayers in addition to the rosary and the chaplet of Divine Mercy that are beautiful to pray in front of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament:
Blessed be God. Blessed be His Holy Name
Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man
Blessed be the Name of Jesus
Blessed be His Most Sacred Heart
Blessed be His Most Precious Blood
Blessed be Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar
Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete
Blessed be the great Mother of Christ, Mary most Holy
Blessed be her Holy and Immaculate Conception
Blessed be her Glorious Assumption
Blessed be the Name of Mary, Virgin and Mother
Blessed be St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse
Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints
I Adore Thee profoundly, O my Jesus, in Thy sacramental form;
I acknowledge Thee to be true God and true Man,
and by this act of adoration
I intend to atone for the coldness
of so many Christians who pass before Thy churches
and sometimes before the very Tabernacle in which Thou art pleased to remain at all hours
with loving impatience to give Thyself to Thy faithful people,
and do not so much as bend the knee before Thee,
and who, by their indifference
proclaim that they grow weary of this heavenly manna,
like the people of Israel in the wilderness.
I offer Thee in reparation for this grievous negligence,
the Most Precious Blood which Thou didst shed from Thy five wounds,
and especially from Thy sacred Side,
and entering therein,
I repeat a thousand times with true recollection of spirit:
O Sacrament most holy!
O Sacrament divine!
All praise and all thanksgiving
be every moment Thine.
Our Father…
Hail Mary…
Glory Be…
My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love You. I ask pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not love You.
May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most incomprehensible and unutterable Name of God be always praised, blessed, loved, adored and glorified, in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth, by all the creatures of God, and by the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Amen.
☼ http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/prayers-and-devotions/eucharistic-devotion/index.cfm
☼ http://www.thedivinemercy.org/message/