The IMPORTANCE of
Perpetual Adoration IN OUR TIMES
Mother Adela,
SCTJM
Foundress
For private use
only
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The Great Promise:
“I will be with you until the end of time.” (Mt 28:20)
The Eucharist is
“God with us,” the Immanuel. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among
us” (Jn 1:14)….And still dwells…“I am with you always, until the end
of the age” (Mt 28:20). He is with us in order to actualize all of
his saving and sanctifying power in each generation. “His mercy
reaches from generation to generation” the Blessed Virgin told us in
the Magnificat (Lk 1:54-55). In this proclamation the power
of the Eucharist is already proclaimed.
The Eucharist is
truly Christ substantially present among us – His Body, Blood, Soul
and Divinity. His Heart, His sentiments, His mind, His desires, His
love. All of Him. Giving Himself to man for love.
The Eucharist
is the Great Gift of the Love of Jesus
The Eucharist is
the excellent gift of love of Jesus towards men. St. John tells us,
“He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end” (Jn
13,1). “To the end” means that He stopped at nothing, absolutely
nothing, to manifest His love. Jesus told Saint Margaret Mary,
“Here is the Heart that has so loved men that it has stopped at
nothing, to the point of consuming itself, to manifest its love to
them” (cf. Autobiography of St. Margaret Mary).
He has loved us
to the extreme of giving Himself for our salvation. He has stopped
at nothing, to the point of giving us His Body, His Blood, and His
Heart on the Cross, and he continues to do so in the Sacred
Eucharist. He continues giving Himself to us in order to give us
the graces and treasures of His Heart – just as He told Saint
Margaret Mary: “My divine Heart is so inflamed with love for man,
that not being able to contain the flames of its ardent love, it
must distribute them and manifest them to mankind to enrich them
with the treasures of my Heart” (cf. From a letter written to Fr.
Croiset, SJ on November 3, 1689. Found in The Letters of St.
Margaret Mary Alacoque).
It is that
intensity of love which the Heart of Jesus manifests in the Blessed
Sacrament. As Saint Angela of Foligno told us, “Oh Jesus, You
instituted this Sacrament, not with the thought of gaining something
from it, but only because You were moved by love, which has no other
measure than being immeasurable. You instituted this Sacrament
because Your love exceeds all possible words. Enflamed with love
for us, You desire to give Yourself to us and to make the
Consecrated Host Your dwelling place, eternally and for always,
until the end of time.”
However,
“Love is not Loved”
Saint Francis
would shout this through the streets of Assisi. For him, the
Eucharist was the greatest sign of the love of Christ, who is
capable of such humility and meekness. “May everything in man shake
and may the entire world fall back before the love and humility of
Christ! Oh, how much love – and how few love Him, how few accompany
Him, how few adore Him.” In all churches, and wherever the
Eucharist was found, Saint Francis would stop to adore and to sing,
with his heart inflamed, the praises and glories of the Eucharistic
Jesus. He would purposely choose the empty and abandoned churches
where the Eucharist was even less adored, in order to make up for
the love that men denied to Christ.
One time Saint
Francis was asked what the greatest thing he could do for Jesus
was. Without hesitating he answered that is was to accompany Jesus
in the Eucharist. “It is for love that God has humbled Himself so
much; that Christ transformed Himself into nourishment; that He
became the means of our salvation; and the reason why He is present
day and night in so many Tabernacles.”
Brothers and
sisters, how can we not love the Eucharist when it is the greatest
gift of His love and is a clear manifestation of His self-giving?
Jesus told Saint Faustina from the Tabernacle, “Love has brought me
here, and love keeps me here” (Diary, 576). To Saint Margaret Mary
He said, “I have a burning thirst to be loved and honored by all in
the Blessed Sacrament.”
Perpetual
adoration in the Eucharist is a sublime expression of our love for
Jesus, who loved us so much that He did not want to leave us; this
is why He has remained with us until the end of the age in the
Blessed Sacrament. “With an eternal love I have loved thee. My
love for you is constant” (cf. Jer. 31:3). The greatest reason for
perpetual adoration is to love the Love of all loves, to give our
love to Him who has loved us first.
“It is highly
fitting that Christ should have wanted to remain present to his
Church in this unique way. Since Christ was about to take his
departure from his own in his visible form, he wanted to give us his
sacramental presence; since he was about to offer himself on the
cross to save us, he wanted us to have the memorial of the love with
which he loved us ‘to the end,’ even to the giving of his life. In
his Eucharistic presence he remains mysteriously in our midst as the
one who loved us and gave himself up for us, and he remains under
signs that express and communicate this love” (CCC 1380).
In the
Eucharist He Wants to Communicate this Redeeming Love to all Mankind
In his
Encyclical of 1965, Mysterium Fidei, Pope Paul VI emphasized
that the Eucharist is Jesus “in the midst of us day and night; He
dwells in us with the fullness of grace and of truth. He raises the
level of morals, fosters virtue, comforts the sorrowful, strengthens
the weak and stirs up all those who draw near to Him to imitate Him”
(no.67).
He is with us to
actualize His saving power in each generation. He lives in the
midst of us in order to sanctify us; to transform us into His image;
to free us from sin, the devil, the flesh, and so many dangers that
threaten us; and to lift us up by the power of His divine life,
resurrecting us from all death and spiritual sterility. He is with
us to calm the interior storms of our passions; to open the eyes of
our souls; to break the chains of oppression, sinful habits, and
attachments to the earthly things; to elevate our human potentials
to celestial things; to transmit the charity and mercy of His Heart;
to give us generous hearts capable of forgiving and even doing good
to our enemies; to equip us, form us, heal us, restore us; to give
us life and make us new creatures; and to bring the power of His
presence to our hearts, families, marriages, parishes, communities,
and entire societies and nations.
He is with us to
dissipate darkness, for He says, “I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the
light of life” (Jn 8:12). He is with us to be the light that
illuminates the world that is in darkness. We live in times of
great darkness, and we must lift up Him who is the Light of the
world in order to dissipate it. “The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it” (Jn 1:5).
During prayer,
in a vision, I saw very clearly two images. I saw a Monstrance with
the Consecrated Host that was elevated in the air and from which
rays of light came forth. Then I saw the map of the world, which
was very dark; but suddenly, in every country and in every city,
lights started to come on; there came to be so many that the
darkness began to dissipate. I understood in that moment that they
were chapels, Churches and oratories – all those places in which
there was Perpetual Adoration of the Eucharist.
The Eucharist
is the Open Fountain
“On that day
there shall be open to the house of David and to the inhabitants of
Jerusalem, a fountain to purify from sin and uncleanness” (Zech
13:1).
In the Letter
Tertio Millennio Adveniente (TMA), the Holy Father
presented one of the greatest crises of man today – his search for
false saviors, false messiahs. As the prophet Jeremiah tells us,
men have abandoned the open and pure fountain and they have dug
wells that hold no water (Jer 2:13). The most important labor, the
Holy Father told us, is to bring a humanity entrapped in the culture
of death to an encounter with its Savior who, having become
Incarnate two-thousand years ago in the womb of Mary, continues to
offer Himself as the fountain of divine life. “Grace flows
especially from the Eucharist upon us as a fountain” (cf.
Sacrosanctum concilium, 61).
Today’s humanity
needs to be presented with the Savior, just as the priest presents
the Eucharistic Jesus saying, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away
the sins of the world.” Jesus is the only One who can cleanse us in
the fountain of living water from all our sins, impurities, and
idolatries. In every Parish where there is Perpetual Adoration, the
faithful who come to adore the Lord proclaim, “Here is the Savior
and Redeemer of the world truly present in the Eucharist, the only
One who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.”
The Holy Father
said on June 1, 1980, in the Basilica of Montmartre in Paris, where
there has been Perpetual Adoration for more than 100 years, “We have
come here to meet with the Heart of Jesus, pierced for us. Here we
find the open fountain from which flow rivers of living water; here
we find love and redeeming power. This is the mystery of the Sacred
Eucharist and the mystery of the Merciful love of Christ – a mystery
that is adored here day and night. In the Sacred Eucharist – and in
a special sense, Perpetual Adoration – we find the movement of love
from which all interior progress and apostolic efficacy come. This
is why we must we must come to it regularly” (cf. no.2,4).
By adoring the
Holy Eucharist, we enter in a “movement of love” that is efficacious
and powerful, healing and freeing. This reminds me of the passage
in the Gospel of John (5:1-15) that tells of the sick man at the
pool of Bethesda (which means house of mercy). There the
sick, paralyzed, blind, and lame waited for the movement of the
waters in order to enter and be healed. The first to enter after
the movement was healed. There Jesus encountered a man who had been
sick for 38 years. But as he did not have anyone to lead him into
the pool, someone else always entered before him, and thus, he was
not able to be healed. Jesus healed him, saying, “Take up your mat
and walk.” The Eucharist is the true House of infinite Mercy, the
Heart of Jesus, the open fountain in a constant movement of grace,
power, and love – where not just one is healed, but all who
come to Him. “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I
will give you rest” (Mt. 11:28).
Perpetual
Adoration attracts Divine Mercy over the World
Saint Faustina
tells us in her diary that one day, while in prayer before the
Blessed Sacrament, the Lord revealed Himself to her. From His
Sacred Heart came forth red and white rays which radiated His light
throughout the whole Chapel. Each time someone would enter into the
chapel, these rays would rest upon the person and go forth to the
entire world. Jesus explained to her that each person who comes to
the Blessed Sacrament represents all humanity and each individual
man, woman and child in all of the world; before the His presence in
the Blessed Sacrament, each one of them receives an effect of His
goodness, grace, love and mercy for one another.
Jesus told her
that He desired adoration of the Blessed Sacrament – which is His
Heart full of mercy – to implore mercy for the world (Diary,
1070); for humanity will not have peace until it returns with
confidence to His mercy. She wrote, “The mercy of God, hidden in
the Blessed Sacrament, is the voice of the Lord who speaks to us
from the throne of mercy: Come to Me, all of you” (Diary,
1485).
Eucharistic
Adoration attracts divine mercy to the world. One day Blessed Dina
Belanger was adoring the Blessed Sacrament. At the beginning of her
holy hour, Jesus showed her a great multitude of souls who were in
mortal sin and about to fall into hell. After her adoration, Jesus
showed her the same souls now bathed in light and on their way to
Heaven. The Lord showed her the power of one holy hour of
adoration, reparation and intercession before the Blessed
Sacrament. “It has the great power of winning graces for so many
souls.”
Eucharistic
Exposition Protects us from Danger
The Eucharistic
Jesus is also with us to protect us from the attacks of the devil in
the different ways they manifest themselves. He is here to protect
us from many spiritual, physical, and material disasters – even
natural disasters. In the desert, the Israelites walked in the
middle of dangers under the protection of God. At night, a great
column of fire illuminated and warmed them. During the day, a cloud
covered them, protecting them from the sun. The Eucharist is the
protection of the new people of God, the Church.
Around 527 AD,
the City of Antioch was suddenly shaken by violent earthquakes. The
people did not have any means to protect themselves other than
writing on their doors the words a faithful person had received from
the Lord in prayer: “Christ is with us, remain firm.” All those
houses with this inscription on their doors were preserved from the
ruin that endangered them; the others were destroyed.
We live
threatened by many different earthquakes. Powerful ones shake and
threaten the Church in many ways – the family, human life, nations.
If there was power in a written phrase saying, “Christ is with us,”
how much more power must exist in the Real Presence – where Christ
really is with us, physically and substantially present in
the Church, in cities, and in the world?
Another example
took place in Avignon, France in 1226. At that time the Albegensians
were propagating great heresies with great strength. In order to
repair and to remove the errors they were propagating, Perpetual
Adoration was established in the Church of the Holy Cross. In 1433,
there was a great flooding of the Sorgue River and the town of
Avignon was submerged. The friars that had care over the church knew
that Jesus had been exposed for Adoration at the time of the
flooding. At their own risk, they took a boat to the church to
rescue the Blessed Sacrament. Upon arriving, they found the church
under 4 feet of water, but from the entrance of the church to the
altar was a dry path. The waters, as in the Red Sea, were parted on
both sides, leaving the altar and the Eucharist untouched.
In 1906, in the
town of Tumaco, Colombia, there was a major earthquake. In this
small coastal town the people met to pray around their priest at the
sea shore. A great tidal wave was approaching and the people were
stricken with panic. The priest went into the Church, took the
Blessed Sacrament to the sea, and lifted Jesus up in front of the
sea. The great tidal wave stopped and the water retracted. The
people were saved by the power of the Eucharist.
Another miracle
is that of Saint Clare. The Saracens (Muslims) were invading Assisi
and they were drawing near Saint Damiano. The voice of the Lord
promised her, “I will always defend you!” Saint Clare prayed for
the city also saying, “Lord, may it please you to defend this city
as well.” And the same voice responded, “The city will suffer great
dangers but will be protected.” Saint Clare then took the Eucharist
and went to the front window with the Monstrance and held it up.
The Saracens, without a reason, fled not having caused any harm.
In Maryland in 2002, one of the worst tornado in history of this
country hit Maryland. All that was in its path was totally
destroyed… except a Tabernacle and the Statue of the Virgin both in
a Catholic college.
Two Pillars:
the Dream of Saint John Bosco
One of St. John
Bosco’s most famous dreams was that of a ship on the sea being
tossed about by the wind in the middle of a storm. The ship, which
represented the Church, was being driven by the Peter, representing
the Pope. The ship was only able to be stable if it remained
anchored between two pillars. On one pillar was the Eucharist and
the inscription “Salvation of Believers” and on the other was Mary
with the inscription “Help of Christians.” Only when Peter guides
the Church to devotion to the Eucharist and Mary will She remain
firm and strong. Only then will She be firm in the faith, even
though great waves crash against Her. Who are those who are faithful
to the Church today? It is those who are in the ship of Peter,
those who love the Eucharist and Mary. Who remains faithful? It is
those who anchor their lives on these two pillars.
The Power of
Intercession before the Blessed Sacrament
“So let us
confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to
find grace for timely help” (Heb 4:16). Saint Gemma Galgani told
us, “Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist as He is present in
Heaven where He sits on His throne.”
What a great apostolate, that of intercession before the Eucharist –
presenting Christ all those who do not know Him or who are far from
Him; keeping guard in His Presence; bringing the world to Christ. “Through
adoration the Christian mysteriously contributes to the radical
transformation of the world and to the sowing of the gospel. Anyone
who prays to the Eucharistic Savior draws the whole world with him
and raises it to God” (John Paul II, Letter to the Bishop of
Liege, May 28, 1996, no.5).
“At no time and
in no historical period – especially at a moment as critical as our
own – can the Church forget the prayer that is a cry for the mercy
of God amid the many forms of evil which weigh upon humanity and
threaten it” (Dives in misericordia, 15).
How powerful is
intercession done before the Eucharist! We are before the Real
Presence of Jesus, we enter into His marvelous light, and we unite
ourselves to His angels and saints who intercede for us and who
unite themselves with our intercession. “May your will be done on
earth as it is in Heaven.”
The Renewal
of the world is found in Eucharistic Adoration
Only Jesus has
the power and the love to change the course of history, leading it
once again into the path of peace promised to it. The Eucharist
brings peace to our hearts. And peaceful hearts create a peaceful
world. When he instituted this devotion in the Basilica of Saint
Peter’s on December 2, 1981 the Holy Father said, “The best and most
sure and effective way to establish lasting peace on earth is by
means of the great power of perpetual adoration of the Blessed
Sacrament” (cf.).
Saint Peter
Julian Eymard wrote, “It is necessary for the salvation of society
to propagate the Eucharistic Reign of Christ. The Eucharist is the
life of the individual and of all nations. We know well that an era
of history prospers or denigrates itself in accordance to its
devotion to the Holy Eucharist. It is the life and the fountain of
its faith, its charity and its holiness. The Eucharist is essential
for our personal lives and for the life of society because it is the
very life of the world.”
The saint also told us, “We have to relieve Christ from His solitude
in the Tabernacle so that He may be able to place Himself at the
head of Christian society, so that He may guide and save it. We
have to build churches and thrones; we must organize scores of
faithful adorers and Eucharistic apostles. A declaration of our
faith like this one – public and solemn – on the Real and
Sacramental Presence of Christ is the greatest need of our time.”
Blessed Mother
Teresa of Calcutta consistently reminded us that the time we spend
in front of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is what will bring
lasting and permanent peace to our families and to the whole world.
The Church, society, and all things will be renewed and restored
when we come together in adoration before Immanuel, “God with
us!”
Power of
Reparation:
Our Lord told
Sister Josefa Menendez a century ago, “In my Sacrament of Love, I am
thirsty. I want love for love. Love is reparation and reparation
is love. When you come to me in the Blessed Sacrament, come full of
love, and pray much so that many may be enflamed in love for me.
Love me, love me, love me!” (cf. Way of Divine Love). These
three petitions seem to be an echo of that encounter between Jesus
and Peter, in which Jesus asked Peter three times, “Do you love
me?” And St. Peter responded three times, “You know that I love
you” (Jn 21:15-17). To three denials, there were three reparations
of love.
Jesus also told
Sr. Josefa, “In the midst of so much pain in Gethsemane my Heart had
a great consolation: to see how, until the end of time, many would
come to accompany me, to adore me, to make reparation, and to give
me their love in the Blessed Sacrament” (cf. ibid.).
The Blessed
Sacrament ought to be the Center of the Christian Life
The Eucharist is
the “source and summit the Christian Life” (LG 11, CCC
1324). The life of every parish, every family, and each individual
ought to have the Eucharist as its fountain and center. In other
words, we are called to have our lives “centered on the Eucharist.”
Pope Paul VI tells us in Mysterium fidei to adore the Blessed
Sacrament, which ought to “serve as
the spiritual center of a religious community or a parish community”
(no.68). The Blessed Sacrament is the living Heart of each one of
our churches.
The measure to
which our family life, parishes, communities have the Eucharist as
their center will be the measure by which the Reign of the
Eucharistic Heart of Jesus will establish itself. This is precisely
the triumph of the Immaculate Heart; each time that a parish opens
its doors to Perpetual Adoration so that man, woman, children and
youth may come to the Lord in the Eucharist, the triumph of the
Immaculate Heart takes place. The message of the Marian apparitions
– those from the past and those of the present – is that the triumph
of the Immaculate Heart will culminate in the Eucharistic reign of
the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Eucharistic reign will come by means
of Perpetual Adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
“Every member of
the Church, especially Bishops and Priests, must be vigilant in
seeing that this Sacrament of love shall be at the centre of the
life of the People of God, so that through all the manifestations of
worship due to it Christ shall be given back ‘love for love’ and
truly become ‘the life of our souls’” (Redemptor hominis,
15).
So that He may
truly become “the life of our souls”… This means that all of our
lives must be rooted in the Eucharist. As St. Ignatius said,
“Remove me completely for a moment from creatures and have me repose
with Jesus in the Tabernacle which is my delight; there I can hide
and rest. There I find life, something indescribable; a joy that I
cannot make others understand; a peace that is only found under the
roof of one’s best friend.”
The saint said
that Jesus in the Tabernacle protected him from his enemies; from
the evil spirits; from the world; from his passions and from his
sinful inclinations. He was the strength in his weakness, his
consolation in suffering, his arm as he fought, freshness in heat,
food for his hungry soul, and his stimulus when tired. Jesus was
his Heaven on earth, the richness in his poverty, his defense in
calumnies, his crown in tribulations. The Eucharistic Jesus was his
God and his all!
Saint Maximilian
Kolbe said, “My object is to institute Perpetual Adoration,” because
he considered it to be his “most important work.” The life of the
City of the Immaculate was centered on it – “Everything begins there
and ends there.”
An urgent
call to the Church
In Seville,
Spain during the closing homily of the 1993 International
Eucharistic Congress’s Eucharistic Vigil, Pope John Paul II said,
“Yes, I hope that Perpetual Adoration with the exposition of the
Blessed Sacrament will continue in the future. I especially hope
that the fruit of this Congress will result in the establishment of
Perpetual Adoration in all parishes and Christian communities around
the entire world” (cf. June 12, no.2).
The Pope has
repeatedly spoken of the great need, value and power of Eucharistic
Adoration. In His Apostolic Letter Mane nobiscum Domine he
wrote, “The Church and the world have great need of Eucharistic
Adoration. Jesus waits for us in this Sacrament of Love. Let us be
generous with our time when we go to encounter Him in adoration and
contemplation, full of faith and willing to make reparation for the
great faults and crimes in this world. Let us never allow our
Eucharistic adoration to end” (cf. no.18).
The Holy Father
established Perpetual Adoration in the Basilica of Saint Peter on
December 2nd, 1981, just a few months after his attempted
assassination. From the center of the Church he proclaimed, “Remain
with us Lord… May all the parishes of the world establish Perpetual
Adoration. The entire Church is in need of the transforming and
sanctifying power of the Eucharist” (cf.).
“Adoration will
heal our Church and thus our nation and thus our world.... Adoration
is more powerful for construction than nuclear bombs are for
destruction” (Peter Kreeft, The Angel and the Ants).
Effects of
Perpetual Adoration
“This devotion
prolongs and prepares in the best way, the encounter with Christ in
the Eucharistic sacrifice and banquet, and is the expression of
adoration and love of all of the Christian community to their Lord.
From this encounter with Christ in the Sacrament, priestly,
religious, missionary vocations will be born which will bear the
light of the Gospel to the ends of the world. From this furnace of
the “love of loves” the apostolic heart will be forged of lay
Christians, witnesses of Christ in the midst of temporal realities.
In the intimacy of the Tabernacle new vigor will be received that
will reign in homes, making of the family, the place of encounter
with God, a center of radiance of the faith, school of Christian
life. In the Bread from Heaven, families will be able to find the
nourishment that will keep them together during present dangers and
will preserve it as a stronghold of life in the face of the culture
of death” (John
Paul II).
The following
are just some of the many effects that come about as a result of
Eucharistic Adoration.
-
A growth in the
participation of the faithful in the Holy Mass and the reception
of the sacraments
-
A return of brethren
previously separated from the Church and an increase in the
number of conversions
-
An increase in
priestly and religious vocations
-
A renewal of family
life
-
Spiritual growth and
an increase in holiness among the faithful from each state in
life
-
An awakening of
great evangelization and missionary zeal that will bring forth
great apostolic fruit
-
A greater community
spirit within each parish that has its center in the true Heart
of the parish – Eucharistic Jesus
-
Great healings of
body and soul
“Take
courage, it is I; do not be afraid”
The disciples
entered the boat to go to the other side of the lake. As they were
crossing the water, the boat began to be tossed about by strong
waves. Around three o’clock in the morning, Jesus came to them
walking on water. When He saw their fear, He said to them, “Take
courage, it is I; do not be afraid” (Mt 14:22).
There are so
many reasons in today’s world for us to be afraid. This is why the
Holy Father, in his book Crossing the Threshold of Hope,
tells us, “‘Be not afraid’…Nations need to hear [these words]…Their
consciences need to grow in the certainty that Someone exists who
holds in His Hands the destiny of the passing world…This someone is
Love – the love that became man, Love crucified and risen, Love
unceasingly present among men. It is Eucharistic Love” (p.221-222).
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