ADORATION FOR HOLY WEEK

As a devotion, Eucharistic Adoration, prayer, and meditation are more than merely looking at the Blessed Host, but are a continuation of what was celebrated in the Eucharist. 

Meditation performed in the presence of the Eucharist outside of Mass is called Eucharistic meditation. It has been practiced by Sts. Peter Julian Eymard, Jean Vianney (Cure of Ars), Thérèse of Lisieux and many others.  Authors such as the Venerable Concepcion Cabrera de Armida and Blessed Maria Candida of the Eucharist have produced large volumes of text based on their Eucharistic meditations.

When the exposure and adoration of the Eucharist is constant (twenty-four hours a day), it is called Perpetual adoration. In a monastery or convent, it is done by the monks or nuns and, in a parish, by volunteer parishioners.

In the opening prayer of the Perpetual chapel in St. Peter Basilica, St.John Paul II prayed for a perpetual adoration chapel in every parish in the world. Pope Benedict XVI instituted perpetual adoration for the laity in each of the five sectors of the diocese of Rome.

Mother Mectilde ponders God's choice of children of Saint Benedict to become in the Church perpetual adorers and guardians of the adorable mystery of the Eucharist that proclaims the death of the Lord and makes present His Sacrifice from age to age. "For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall proclaim the death of the Lord, until He come" (1 Corinthians 11:26).

Mother Mectilde  identifies the Most Holy Eucharist as the portion and heritage of the children of Saint Benedict. "The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup." (Psalm 15:5) She attributes this divine election of the children of Saint Benedict to an affinity with the Most Holy Sacrament that pertains to their very state of life.

But this inheritance is for all, and perhaps why more and more parishes are presenting the gift of adoration to the people, in gratitude for His Body given for us and in atonement for a world seemingly gone amok.

 This Holy Thursday (feast to celebrate the Last Supper, when Jesus gave us His Body & Blood) we have much to be thankful for.