"The time you spend with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the best time you will spend on earth.  Each moment that you spend with Jesus will deepen your union with Him and make your soul everlastingly more glorious and beautiful in Heaven and will help bring about everlasting peace on earth." - Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta





During Lent, we will have Eucharistic Adoration following the 8:30 AM Mass on Tuesdays and from 5:00 to 6:00 PM on Wednesdays. There will be confessions during that time.

Eucharistic adoration is the act of worshipping God as He is present in the consecrated Eucharist. Spending time before the Blessed Sacrament, in prayer and devotion, is spending time before the living God.

It is highly fitting that Christ should have wanted to remain present to His Church in this unique way. 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:

       The Church and the world have a great need for Eucharistic worship. Jesus awaits us 
       in this sacrament of love. Let us not refuse the time to go meet Him in adoration, in 
       contemplation full of faith, and open to making amends for the serious offenses and 
       crimes of the world. Let our adoration never cease.
                                                                      (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1380)
 

Sometimes it can be intimidating to go to Adoration, not because we fear being with Jesus in prayer but rather because we have never been taught what to do in an extended period of prayer. Do we just stare at the golden monstrance with the Host inside, not moving or making a sound? What?

One popular way to spend your prayer time during Eucharistic Adoration is to divide the time into four sections using the acronym ACTS: adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication.

Adoration is entering into God's holy Presence with awe and love, blessing Him in return for all He has given us.

Contrition is admitting and expressing sorrow for our sins and those of the whole world, for all the ways we have fallen short in our relationship with God and with our neighbor.

Thanksgiving is praising and thanking God for all He has done for us - life, salvation, filling us with His Spirit, providing for us and the people in our lives.

Supplication is presenting our needs before our heavenly Father, asking for our own deeper conversion and personal needs, as well as for those around us and the whole world. We pray, too, for the souls in Purgatory.

In addition, don't be afraid to spend time in silent prayer. Sitting and listening quietly to God creates an intimacy that helps us deepen our relationship with Him.

You may want to end, or begin, your period of Eucharistic Adoration with the following prayer:
 

Prayer of Adoration of the Eucharist

My Lord Jesus Christ, I adore You in all the tabernacles of the world.
I offer You my life in reparation for sins against the Blessed Sacrament, 
the unworthy communions, the disrespect, lack of reverence in Your churches,
and countless other sins against Your most holy Body and Blood.
Please, my Lord, increase my faith in Your Eucharistic presence
so that my devotion may be fanned into a flame of love of You
and that I may go into the world to proclaim Your kingdom.
I ask this of Your mercy in Your Holy Name. Amen.

Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, pray for us!