Childlikeness and Eucharistic Adoration

 

Silence is key for Eucharistic Adoration. A lot of people can try to fill Adoration with time and schedule out their period of adoration, but personally, I believe that this practice takes away from your Holy Hour as a whole. Eucharistic Adoration should be a continuous moment of encounter with Jesus, and trying to make the hour into a series of time activities would ultimately take away from the encounter aspect of Eucharistic Adoration as a whole.

In our current society that is driven by distraction and consumption, silence can be hard to come by and it can be something difficult to learn to be comfortable with. After all, no one wants to miss out on having fun with the people around them or being a part of the crowd. But in order to come closer to Our Lord, we must encounter Christ within the silence of the heart.

I’ve heard that when an older couple happens to be around each other for any extended period of time, they’ve gotten to the point when they can simply sit in each other’s presence and enjoy the other person’s company without saying a word. To be fair, most people aren’t at that level, and the same thing seems to happen in Eucharistic Adoration as well. You can get to a certain point where you’ve gotten so close to the Lord that you’ll enter into what the theologians call the “Prayer of Quiet”. You simply look at Jesus and He lovingly looks back at you. One of the fundamental ways to being successful in your Holy Hour is consistency, but this also happens to be one of the most common obstacles that people face when it comes to making a Holy Hour.

Most people who want to go to Eucharistic Adoration may have the excuse that they just don’t have the time. For some people, this may actually be a legit excuse. But you know the great thing about twenty-four-hour Adoration chapels is the fact that they’re open twenty-four hours. You literally have no excuse, other than Oh, right, I have an appointment with my pillow from the hours of 11 PM- 6:30 AM or whatever your wake-up time happens to be, sorry I’m booked!” One solution to this common problem is scheduling your Holy Hour as a meeting, because who’s going to intentionally miss out on an important meeting. (I was going to put just “meeting”, but then I thought oh yeah, people do that already). There are some meetings that you might want to miss out on and I get that. But who would want to miss a meeting with Jesus? Honestly, your holy hour with Jesus will be the best meeting of your week! Get excited guys! It’s more like scheduling time to hang out with your best friend who you haven’t seen in months, and who wouldn’t want to do that?

Distractions can be prevalent when in Eucharistic Adoration mostly because we live in a distracted world. Not to worry, we can ask Our Lord to get us back on track when in a time of prayer like Eucharistic Adoration. It’s also very important to be authentic with Jesus. Don’t hold anything back from Him and remember that the Lord can handle whatever you give Him.

We must remember that our main mission as Catholics is to be love in the midst of a world that has forgotten what love is. We are called to drink from the wellspring of God’s love and take that light to others. Like so many other things in life, if we don’t possess love, then we won’t be able to give love. Spending time with Our Lord in Eucharistic Adoration will certainly be the most worthwhile experience of your week. Lay your burdens on Him, bring your concerns to Him, and allow Him to love you where you are. Every time you go into Eucharistic Adoration, ask Jesus to increase your love for Him.

If you’re skeptical, that’s okay, just give Jesus some time to work and to do what He does. Let Him love you! That is literally all He wants to do. He wants to love you and have you realize how much you are loved. So if you need some more love in your life, Jesus can help you out with that. So just pop in and say hi for an hour, you’ll be glad you did!

The article was written by: Br. Athanasius Mary of the Knights of the Holy Eucharist