Adoration is not for a handful or a selected few. It is for everyone. It is what our loving Lord asks for, and more importantly, what He deserves.
Blessed John Paul II went so far as to urge EVERY parish in the world to have Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration.
Let me put one hour of Adoration each week into proper perspective for you by borrowing and adapting a few interesting statistics offered by Father Oscar Lukefahr, CM: If you live to be eighty, you would have spent about three years reading, five years talking, six years riding in a car, seven years eating, eleven years in recreational activities and twenty-seven years sleeping. If you offered an hour of Adoration each week, you would have given our Lord less than six months of your time. Add attendance at Sunday Mass for an hour every week and praying for five minutes every day to your weekly hour of Adoration, we are still talking of offering Him less than one year of your life. “How can we refuse so little to a loving God,” asks Father Lukefahr, “who has given us so much? (We Worship – A Guide to the Catholic Mass p. 17).
May I ask the same question?
Sadly, there are some Catholics, not few in number, who have neither seen a monstrance nor attended Benediction and Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. How can that be?
According to Father Martin Lucia, more Catholics would likely come to adore the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, if they knew that: every moment they spend in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament would deepen their union with Christ; transform them into the very image and likeness of God Himself; make up for those who do not know Him or who do not love Him; and bring about the radical transformation of the whole world. If Catholics also knew that when they go before the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament they stand in the place of the one person in the world who does not know God or who is the furthest away from God, or the most in need of His mercy, that they bring upon that soul – they win for that soul – the grace of salvation to turn back to God, to go to heaven instead of hell, and that they gain for that person the grace of salvation – our Lord would never be left alone.
Belief in the Real Presence is an act of faith and a gift from our Lord. That being said, if a pastor does all that he can to teach the truths set forth above, to restore and maintain a sense of the sacred within the confines of his Church building, if he properly and regularly catechizes his flock, if his every action evidences his deep seeded belief, sense of awe, amazement in and dependence on the Blessed Sacrament, and if he participates in, promotes and treasures Adoration himself, his parishioners will come to do likewise.
“If you build it, they will come” was a punch line in a movie a few years back.
Jesus invites his imperfect creatures to come into His Presence so He can make them more like Himself. Most able bodied persons can find one hour each week to be with their Lord and Savior (even if it is in 10 or 15 minute segments). Many simply choose not to do so. Others find only locked churches.
So I ask any of our treasured shepherds who remain reluctant to promote Perpetual Adoration or even weekly Adoration in their parishes to step out in faith and let our Eucharistic Lord transform them, their parishes and their parishioners.
