The Adoration of the Holy Eucharist, or Eucharistic Adoration, is an opportunity for the faithful to pray to Jesus Christ before the Eucharist at their local parish. The term “the faithful” refers to Catholics who wish to express and deepen their love of Christ. It involves exposing a consecrated host, the Blessed Sacrament, allowing people to sit and pray in the presence of Jesus Christ. Adoration specifically refers to any prayer in front of the Blessed Sacrament whether in front of a closed Tabernacle or in front of the exposed host in a monstrance.
Here is a guide to Eucharistic Adoration Etiquette.
Make A Holy Hour
The “Holy Hour” made in the presence of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament is a devotion in which we call to mind the Life, Passion, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord. During this hour we seek, through prayer and meditation, the mercy of God, the conversion of souls, the sanctification of sinners and the mitigation of the terrible punishment foretold at Fatima in 1917. Our Lord appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in France (1671 to 1690), and revealed to her His Sacred Heart wounded by the lack of respect for the Blessed Sacrament –His Body and Blood– and wounded by the many other sins of the world. For that reason Our Lord requested her to originate a Holy Hour of Reparation to His Sacred Heart.
In Pope Pius XI’s Encyclical called Miserentissimus Redemptor, he often refers to the conversations between Jesus and Saint Margaret, and the pressing need for all Catholics to perform acts of reparation and expiation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for the sins that the whole human race offers constantly to God.
In the Gospel of Matthew, we learn that Jesus and his disciples went to Gethsemane after the Last Supper (Holy Thursday). He shared his suffering and grief with them, knowing of His crucifixion the next day. So, Jesus went to pray, but He asked His disciples to stay awake with Him. When he returned, however, He found the disciples asleep. “So, could you not stay awake with me one hour?” (Mt 26:40).
When we make a Holy Hour, we remain and stay awake with Jesus. It’s a powerful and beautiful way to grow closer to Him.
“My greatest happiness is to be before the Blessed Sacrament, where my heart is, as it were, in Its center.” ― Saint Margaret Mary Alaqoque
“Know also that you will probably gain more by praying fifteen minutes before the Blessed Sacrament than by all the other spiritual exercises of the day. True, Our Lord hears our prayers anywhere, for He has made the promise, ‘Ask, and you shall receive,’ but He has revealed to His servants that those who visit Him in the Blessed Sacrament will obtain a more abundant measure of grace.” ― Saint Alphonsus Liguori
Why Make A Holy Hour? by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
Here are ten reasons:
- It is time spent in the presence of Our Lord Himself. If faith is alive, no further reason is needed….
- In our busy lives, it takes considerable time to shake off the “noonday devils,” the worldly cares, that cling to our souls like dust….
- Our Lord asked for it. “Had you no strength, then, to watch with me even for an hour?”…
- The Holy Hour keeps a balance between the spiritual and the practical….
- The Holy Hour will make us practice what we preach….
- The Holy Hour helps us make reparation for the sins of the world and for our own sins. When the Sacred Heart appeared to St. Margaret Mary, it was His Heart, and not His head, that was crowned with thorns. It was Love that was hurt. Black Masses, sacrilegious communions, scandals, militant atheism—who will make up for them?….
- It reduces our liability to temptation and weakness. Presenting ourselves before Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament is like putting a tubercular patient in good air and sunlight. The virus of our sins cannot long exist in the face of the Light of the world….
- The Holy Hour is a personal prayer….
- Meditation keeps us from seeking an external escape from our worries and miseries….
- Finally, the Holy Hour is necessary for the Church…. To abide with Christ is spiritual fellowship, as He insisted on the solemn and sacred night of the Last Supper, the moment He chose to give us the Eucharist: “You have only to live on in me, and I will live on in you” (John 15:4). He wants us in His dwelling: “That you, too, may be where I am” (John 14:3).
“I keep up the Holy Hour to grow more into his likeness … We become like that which we gaze upon. Looking into a sunset, the face takes on a golden glow. Looking at the Eucharistic Lord for an hour transforms the heart in a mysterious way as the face of Moses was transformed after his companionship with God on the mountain.”― Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
“Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration with exposition needs a great push. People ask me: ‘What will convert America and save the world?’ My answer is prayer. What we need is for every parish to come before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in holy hours of prayer.”― Mother Teresa
The Holy Hour (9:30)
Fr. Boniface Hicks, O.S.B. | How do I Adore? (10:30)