Meditations

My Eucharistic Adoration Experience

I had occasionally dropped into a perpetual adoration chapel at a neighboring parish. One day there was a note that they needed a temporary substitute for the 1AM to 2AM hour on Monday morning. I called and began an experience that I would not have imagined. It has now become my weekly hour.

The chapel is about 15’ x 20’, well lit, air-conditioned (both heated and cooled), has a two door entry system for evening and night hours and is situated on street level under the main church building. There is a padded chair and reading lamp and four regular church pews. They also have a telephone installed in case of emergency. The monstrance and two vigil candles are on a raised altar. A three foot high bronzed crucifix is on the wall behind the altar and a striking two foot high picture of Jesus, the Divine Mercy, sits on a step just below the monstrance. I relate these details if perhaps someone should like to look into beginning a chapel.

On my first hour of solitude, I made a decision that I would not look at the clock. I imagined that it would be distracting. As the weeks went by, I was beginning to see a pattern wherein I made an Act of Contrition upon my arrival and the midnight to 1AM person left. The pew directly in front of the monstrance put me at just about a foot above eye level of the picture, with the sacred Host a foot above me and the crucifix on the wall framing the monstrance.

I wondered whether the hour should be structured, perhaps somewhat along the lines of using ACTS as a guide: Beginning with Acclamation, then Contrition, offering Thanksgiving and ending with Supplication. I found myself being conscious of what I was doing rather than just doing it. At one point I realized that I had an ally in my confusion. I asked the Holy Spirit to perfect my time with Jesus in my Eucharistic Hour. It wasn’t like a bolt out of the blue, but I began to see that this time is defined as Eucharistic Adoration! There are other times to try to get a handle on family situations, work related quandaries and by extension, my future.

I am in the process of redefining my original concept of Adoration. I know that all communication with God glorifies Him and the Scripture about ‘There is a time for ……..’ is a good guideline.

Some of the neat awareness I have had is that I am all alone in this Chapel, that is, except for Jesus. I don’t have to be self conscious of my prayer position, and if I am moved to speak out loud, it just between us. I have begun singing some decades of the Divine Mercy Chaplet and only a loving God would be glorified by my off key renditions. During my hour, time ceases. It is almost shocking when the doorbell rings for the next person’s hour. Once, I blurted out, “But Lord, we just got started!”

With regard to the Real Presence, I have been lifted to new heights. My whole mental awareness does not even entertain a thought that Jesus is not fully present and that we are not in direct communication. I find myself looking into the eyes of the picture, and one might say that I am imagining it, but they are twinkling and there is a smile that is as a much reality as I am. For a while, in the beginning, I wondered if focusing on the picture might be taking away from the sacred Host. I felt His smile turning into a grin and heard in my inner being His voice saying, “I am omnipresent, I am everywhere, even in a picture.”

In the course of moving the direction of my prayer more toward Adoration, I realized that others before me had been called to perfect Adoration prayers. Litanies of the Sacred Heart, etc. are an outpouring of perfect praise. My personal litany has become an outpouring of recognition of the many ways in which God has touched me and ways in which I have experienced Him.

I could sum up the overall experience this way. I heard a conversation between two converts. One had tried dozens of churches and denominations. At length he began to feel that none of them had the fullness of truth. He found that he was trying to just do it all himself. He had become of church of one, which he described as “Jesus, the Bible, and me.

My Eucharistic experience has led me to an awesome relationship that really is Jesus and me for my whole hour that I have no doubt will become awesomer and awesomer!