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Eucharistic Heart: Fr. Stefano Manelli, FI, STD |
Eucharistic Adoration
exemplified by the SaintS
by Fr. Stefano M. Manelli, FI, STD
When one loves
truly and loves greatly, one begins to adore. Great love and
adoration are two distinct things; but, they form a whole. They
become adoring love and loving adoration. Jesus in the tabernacle is
adored only by those who truly love Him, and He is loved in an
eminent manner by whoever adores Him .
The saints, the artists and experts of love, were faithful, ardent
adorers of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Importantly, eucharistic
adoration has always been considered the closest likeness we have to
the eternal adoration in which will consist the whole of our
Paradise. The difference lies only in the veil that hides the vision
of that Divine Reality of which faith gives us unwavering certainty.
"At the feet of Jesus"
Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament has been the great passion of the
saints. Their adoration lasted hours and hours, sometimes whole days
or nights. There "at Jesus' feet" like Mary of Bethany (Lk. 10:39),
in loving union with Him, absorbed in contemplating Him, they
surrendered their hearts in a pure and fragrant offering of adoring
love.
Let us listen to St. Peter Julian Eymard who would fervently
exclaim: �May I serve as a footstool, O Lord, at Your Eucharistic
Throne!� Listen to what Ven. Charles de Foucauld wrote before the
tabernacle: "What a tremendous delight, my God! To spend over
fifteen hours without having anything else to do but look at You and
tell You, 'Lord, I love You!' Oh, what sweet delight!"
All the saints have been ardent adorers of the Holy Eucharist, from
the great Doctors of the Church like St. Thomas Aquinas and St.
Bonaventure, to Popes like St. Pius V and St. Pius X, priests like
the holy Cure of Ars and St. Peter Julian Eymard, down to humble
souls like St. Rita, St. Paschal Baylon, St. Bernadette Soubirous,
St. Gerard, St. Dominic Savio, St. Gemma Galgani, all the saints
were ardent adorers of the Eucharist. These chosen ones, whose love
was true, kept no count of the hours of fond adoration they spent
day and night before Jesus in the tabernacle.
Consider how St. Francis of Assisi spent so much time, often entire
nights, before the altar, and remained there so devoutly and humbly
that he deeply moved anyone who stopped to watch him. Consider how
St. Benedict Benedict Joseph Labre, St.Labre, called the "poor man
of the Forty Hours," spent days in churches in which the Blessed
Sacrament was solemnly exposed. For years and years this Saint was
seen in Rome making pilgrimages from church to church where the
Forty Hours was being held, and remaining there before Jesus, always
on his knees absorbed in adoring prayer, motionless for eight hours,
even when his friends, the insects, were crawling on him and
stinging him all over.
Once when it was proposed to do a portrait of St. Aloysius Gonzaga,
a discussion ensued about the posture in which to paint him.
Eventually, the Saint was portrayed in adoration before the altar,
because Eucharistic adoration was the most distinctive
characteristic of his sanctity.
That favored soul of the Sacred Heart, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque,
one Holy Thursday, spent fourteen hours without interruption
prostrate in adoration. St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, on a feast of
the Sacred Heart, remained in adoration twelve continuous hours,
absorbed and, as it were, so magnetized to Our Lord in the Eucharist
that when a Sister asked her if she had liked the arrangement of
flowers and drapings adorning the altar, she answered, "I did not
notice them. I only saw one Flower, Jesus, and no other."
After visiting the cathedral in Milan, St. Francis de Sales heard
someone ask him, "Your Excellency, did you see what a wealth of
marble there is, and how majestic the lines are?" The holy bishop
answered, "What do you want me to tell you? Jesus' presence in the
tabernacle has my spirit so absorbed, that all the artistic beauty
escapes my notice." What a lesson this reply is for us who
thoughtlessly go to visit famous churches as though they were
museums!
Maximum recollection
A good example of the spirit of recollection during Eucharistic
adoration is the striking experience which Bl. Contardo Ferrini,
professor at the University of Modena, had. One day, after he
entered a church to visit Our Lord, he became so absorbed in
adoration, with eyes fixed on the tabernacle, that he took no notice
when someone robbed him of the mantle spread over his shoulders.
"Not even a bolt of lightning could distract her," it was said of
St. Mary Magdalene Mary Magdalene Postel, St.Postel, because she
appeared so recollected and devout when adoring the Blessed
Sacrament. On the other hand, once, during adoration, St. Catherine
of Siena happened to raise her eyes toward a person passing by.
Because of this distraction of an instant the Saint was so afflicted
that she wept for some time, exclaiming, "I am a sinner! I am a
sinner!"
How is it that we are not ashamed of our behavior in church? Even
before Our Lord solemnly exposed we so easily turn about to look to
the right and left, and are moved and distracted by any trifle,
without feeling- and this is what is terrible- any sorrow or regret.
Ah! The delicate, sensitive love of the saints! St. Teresa taught
that "in the presence of Jesus in the Holy Sacrament we ought to be
like the Blessed in Heaven before the Divine Essence." That is the
way the saints have behaved in church. The holy Cure of Ars used to
adore Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament with such fervor and
recollection that people became convinced he saw Jesus in person
with his own eyes. People said the same of St. Vincent de Paul: "He
sees Jesus there within (the tabernacle)." And they said the same of
St. Peter Julian Eymard, the incomparable apostle of eucharistic
adoration. He found a devout imitator in Blessed Pio of Pietrelcina,
who was enrolled among the Priest-adorers and for forty years kept a
little image of St. Peter Julian Eymard on his desk.
Even after death
It is noteworthy that the Lord seems to have singularly favored
certain saints by enabling them to perform, after death, an act of
adoration to the Blessed Sacrament. Thus, when St. Catherine of
Bologna, St. Catherine of Bologna was laid out before the Blessed
Sacrament altar a few days after her death, her body rose up to a
position of prayerful adoration. During the funeral Mass of St.
Paschal Baylon, his eyes opened twice, i.e. at the elevation of the
Host and at the elevation of the Chalice, to express his adoration
of the Eucharist. When Bl. Matthew Girgenti, Bl.Matthew Girgenti's
body was in the church for his funeral Mass, his hands joined in
adoration toward the Eucharist. At Ravello, Bl. Bonaventure of
Potenza Bonaventure of Potenza's body, while being carried past the
altar of the Blessed Sacrament, made a devout head-bow to Jesus in
the tabernacle.
It is really true that "Love is stronger than death" (CANT. 8:6),
and that �He that eats this Bread shall live forever� (JOHN 6:59).
The Eucharist is Jesus our Love. The Eucharist is Jesus our Life.
Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is a heavenly love which enlivens
us and makes us one with Jesus, the Victim, �always living to make
intercession for us� (HEB. 7:25). We should be mindful that one who
adores, makes himself one with Jesus in the Host as Jesus intercedes
with the Father for the salvation of the brethren. This is the
highest charity toward all men: to obtain for them the kingdom of
heaven. And only in Paradise will we see how many souls have been
delivered from the gates of Hell by eucharistic adoration done in
reparation by holy persons known and unknown. We must not forget
that at Fatima the Angel personally taught the three shepherd
children the beautiful eucharistic prayer of reparation, which we
also ought to learn: �O most holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, I adore You profoundly, and I offer You the most precious
Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the
tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges
and indifference with which He is offended. And through the infinite
merits of His most Sacred Heart and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary,
I beg of You the conversion of poor sinners.� Eucharistic adoration
is an ecstasy of love and it is the most powerful salvific practice
in the apostolate of saving souls.
For this reason St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe, the great apostle of
Mary, in each of his foundations, before providing even the cells of
the friars, wanted the chapel to be constructed first in order to
introduce at once perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
(exposed). Once, when he was taking a visitor on a tour of his �City
of the Immaculate� in Poland and they had entered the large �Chapel
of Adoration,� he said to his guest with a gesture toward the
Blessed Sacrament, �Our whole life depends on this.�
�The better part�
The stigmatized friar of the Gargano, Blessed Pio of Pietrelcina, to
whom crowds flocked from every quarter, after his long daily hours
in the confessional, used to spend almost all the remaining day and
night before the tabernacle in adoration, keeping company with Our
Lady as he recited hundreds of Rosaries.
Once the Bishop of Manfredonia, Msgr. Cesarano, chose Blessed Pio�s
friary to make an eight-day retreat. Each night the bishop got up at
various times to go to the chapel, and each night despite the
different hours, he always found Blessed Pio in adoration. The great
apostle of the Gargano was working throughout the world unseen�and
sometimes seen, as in instances of bilocation�while he remained
there prostrate before Jesus, with his Rosary in his hands. He used
to tell his spiritual children, �When you want to find me, come near
the tabernacle.�
Ven. James Alberione, Fr. JamesAlberione, another great apostle of
our time, expressly placed as the foundation for his entire dynamic
work, The Apostolate of the Press (Societ� Apostolata Stampa),
adoration of the Holy Eucharist. Thus, his Congregation of Pious
Disciples of the Divine Master, were given the single, specific
vocation of adoring Our Lord solemnly exposed in the Holy Eucharist
night and day.
Eucharistic adoration is truly that �best part� of which Jesus spoke
when chiding Martha for busying herself with �many things� that were
secondary, overlooking the �one thing necessary� chosen by Mary:
humble and affectionate adoration (LK. 10:41-42).
What should be the love and zeal, then, that we ought to have for
eucharistic adoration? If it is by Jesus that �all things subsist�
(COL. 1:17), then, to go to Him, to stay with Him, to unite
ourselves with Him means to find, to gain, to possess that by which
we and the whole universe exist. �Jesus alone is All; anything else
is nothing,� said St. Th�r�se of Lisieux.
To renounce, then, what is nothing for the sake of what is All, to
consume our every resource and ourselves for the sake of Him who is
All, rather than for what is nothing�is this not indeed our true
wealth and highest wisdom?
This was the way St. Peter Julian Eymard argued when he said, �A
good hour of adoration before the most Blessed Sacrament brings
about greater good for all than visiting all the marble churches,
than venerating all the tombs (of the saints).� This was also
evidently the thinking of Blessed Pio of Pietrelcina when he wrote,
�A thousand years of enjoying human glory is not worth even an hour
spent sweetly communing with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.�
What good reason we have for envying the angels, as the saints have
done, because angels ceaselessly remain stationed around the
tabernacles!
This page is the work of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary
