I am extremely fortunate that my parish has perpetual adoration. This has been a beautiful gift to our parish, and it has resulted in countless blessings. Once, I was asked to speak at the end of Mass on the importance of giving one’s time to the parish (part of a “time, talent, and treasure” campaign). I told everyone to make a commitment to go to adoration once a week. Don’t worry about joining any committees or programs, just go to adoration. Everything else would work out after that.

Our Holy Father spoke yesterday on the importance of this devotional practice:

Adoration should lead to greater union with Jesus ^[1]

Speaking to the Congregation’s full assembly, Pope Benedict said that he hopes their reflection on Eucharistic adoration “may help to clarify… the liturgical and pastoral means by which the Church of our time can promote faith in the real presence of the Lord in the Blessed Eucharist, and to ensure that the celebration of Mass fully incorporates the aspect of adoration.”

The Pope also took care to highlight the truths of the faith that adoration is rooted in. “The doctrine of the transubstantiation of the bread and wine, and of the real presence, are a truth of faith, already evident in Holy Scripture and later confirmed by the Fathers of the Church,” noted Benedict XVI.

After then explaining that, “in the Eucharist, adoration must become union: union with the living Lord and with His mystical Body,” the Pope illustrated this reality by drawing upon what he said at World Youth Day 2005 in Cologne: “God no longer simply stands before us as the One who is totally Other. He is within us, and we are in Him. His dynamic enters into us and then seeks to spread outwards to others until it fills the world, so that His love can truly become the dominant measure of the world.”

Come, let us adore Him!