Tuesday, February 05, 2013

Eucharistic Adoration

Find out about Eucharistic adoration in your town.  Find out about Forty Hours devotions.  Look for parishes that have perpetual adoration.  You might be surprised.  For example, I live in a liberal deep-freeze, a Tridentine-Mass-free zone swaying to the beat of Marty Haugen ditties and even worse things.  Yet there are no fewer than three (3) parishes here within a 15-mile radius that have perpetual adoration, and one of them has some of the nuttiest Masses I have ever attended.  It also has the most beautiful monstrance.  If you can't find any parishes that have regular adoration, work on getting it started.

One thing we all ought to resolve to do during Lent -- which is just around the corner -- is to make more visits to Jesus in the Sacrament of Love.  Ven. Fulton J. Sheen made a Eucharistic Holy Hour every single day for decades, and said it was precisely that which gave power to his preaching.  St. Alphonsus Liguori says that the time we spend in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament will bring us the greatest consolation at the hour of death.  It is not possible to count as wasted the time we spend in devotion before the tabernacle.  Most of us could not get in to see the Queen of England, or the President of the United States if our lives depended on it, yet the King of the Universe waits for us anxiously, straining for the sound of our footsteps at His threshold.  Every minute we spend with Him in the tabernacle, or the monstrance, we advance in holiness, whether we know it or not.  All the time, He is working on us, correcting faults, enlightening our minds and hearts, detaching us from sins, until one day we realize we are no longer the same.  All we have to do is show up with at least a glimmer of good will, and He takes care of the rest. He does not turn away even His bitterest enemies.

And that is the answer to the skeptics.  Let them take their glimmer of good will to the nearest church or chapel and find out what comes of it.  And let them not be deceived by appearances.  The Host in the monstrance doesn't look like anything very special.  It looks like a dry, lifeless piece of unleavened bread.  Yet even if the monstrance were solid gold set with rubies and pearls, or intricately carved from a single huge diamond, it would be trash compared to that which it holds.  

Here, incidentally, is some real trash holding the Eucharist.  

I'm sorry, but this just stinks.  We should perhaps make a special point of visiting parishes where this sort of thing goes on, to console the Eucharistic Lord and make reparation to Him for such disgraceful accommodations.  And also raise money for the purchase of a real monstrance.

Finally, while there is no substitute for a live visit to a church or adoration chapel, in case you can't make it to one, there are adoration chapels with live webcams.  This one is located at St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church in Louisville, Kentucky, where -- not surprisingly -- they have the Tridentine Mass.

So go visit the Lord in the Sacrament of Love, and let Him love you.

O Sacrament, most holy, O Sacrament Divine: all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine.

2 comments:

  1. That monstrance is total garbage! It doesn't give reverence to what is inside. We desperately need beautiful art, buildings, sculptures and monstrances. I do feel much more equipped to handle things after I've gone to Adoration.

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  2. The number of beautiful antique monstrances, chalices, reliquaries, etc. found for sale on places like eBay is staggering. They weren't put their because of the efforts of thieves, but by the efforts of PRIESTS. These things came from closed or renovated churches, and were originally paid for with donations from the faithful, and were part of THEIR collective Catholic inheritance and the life and history of their parishes. The lack of respect shown for these things since Vatican II is disheartening. I worked at a church in Texas years ago, and a back room was just crammed with unwanted church items, left in heaps. Candlesticks from the now gone high altar, thuribles, a monstrance, lying on their sides, on the floor, etc. The old altar stone with relics was in a closet with metal cleaner, under a pile of rags!

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