Perpetual adoration is one of our most powerful tools in our prayer toolbox to help us lead holy lives.
Recently, the importance of adoration has come up twice for me in real and concrete ways.
Like many of you, I spent 33 days in preparation for my personal consecration to St. Joseph. (If you haven’t tried this yet in the Year of St. Joseph, you should!) The book opened my eyes to the wonders of our spiritual father. Wonder number seven is “Adorer of Christ.” St. Joseph and our Blessed Mother were the first adorers of Jesus.
To be like St. Joseph, we need to adore Christ. Adoration is the sledgehammer that can crush the sins that stand between us and our Savior.
St. Peter Julian Eynard said, “We must beg for good adorers; the Blessed Sacrament needs them to replace St. Joseph and to imitate his life of adoration.”
Another example for me of the importance of adoration was Fr. Jarrod’s Lenten series on daily prayer. He spoke of “building an ALTAR” to express our love for God in prayer. ALTAR is our expression of love as we Adore, Love, Thank, Ask, Receive. Father explained that prayer is an act of love from a child to their heavenly Father. God is always present in our lives, so out of humility we respond in adoration.
The Adoration Chapel is our prayer workshop. A place to go, weekly if we can, to sit or kneel at the ALTAR and adore, love, give thanks, ask, and receive and listen to our Lord.
Our Catholic church is amazing! It gives us the tools we need to build a spiritually rich prayer life, an ALTAR. Jesus came into this world and died for us, died for love of us. May we build up a temple that adores, loves, thanks, asks, and receives His grace. St. Francis and St. Joseph, pray for us.
Pat Burns, Director of Stewardship & Finance