Eucharistic Adoration

What is Eucharistic Adoration?
Eucharistic adoration is a prayer and form of worship that is offered
to the Lord through His most Blessed Sacrament. Eucharistic adoration can
be done in community or individually. In community, Eucharistic adoration
is often led by the priest in a parish. In this form of worship, the
Blessed Sacrament is taken from the adoration chapel and exposed in the
altar of the parish. Then, the whole parochial community is invited to
adore the most holy and Blessed Sacrament through a liturgical prayer
which is often already prepared before hand or taken from prayer books
written and published for that very purpose.

In community, Eucharistic adoration usually is done in an hour. This
spiritual exercise has many steps involved: first, the Blessed Sacrament
is exposed; second, the community prays - alternating between prayers
and moments of silence; third, the priest, together with his ministers,
perform the benediction; then, lastly, the Blessed Sacrament is returned
to the adoration chapel.

If done individually, Eucharistic adoration is not as rigid in its steps.
You may have your own way of praying before the Blessed Sacrament. Your
prayer can be in a way that would personally be suited to your particular
spiritual temperament. And you are free to pray as long as you wish.
Usually, in Eucharistic adoration, indulgences are given for a 30-minute
visit and one hour visits and prayers [this must be accompanied though
with confession and the attendance of Mass]. However, we can visit the
Lord in the presence of His most Blessed Sacrament for as short as 10
minutes or even less. What is important is that in our Eucharistic
adoration or short visits to the Blessed Sacrament, we acknowledge Him
deeply in our life as our God and Savior and give Him quality time
and what is due Him by virtue of religion.

For those who wish to make Eucharistic adoration in a more organized manner,
there are many guidelines that abound that can help us make an hour of
worship. These guides are usually in booklet form and can be bought in
any Catholic bookstore. We can also search online for such guides. A
Catholic author may have written about a guide on how to make an hour's
visit to the Blessed Eucharist.

What are the benefits and advantages of Eucharistic Adoration?
First of all, we get to realize that indeed the Lord is Himself
present in the Blessed Sacrament. In Eucharistic adoration, the host that
we gaze upon is the Lord Himself and we keep Him company and do homage and
worship to Him by our very presence.

Second, we get to love the Eucharist and all that is related to it:
adoration and its celebration in the parish community or in a religious
community. We get to realize how truly the Eucharist is the source and
summit of Christian life. And this we realize by our frequent visits to
the adoration chapel and by our practice of Eucharistic adoration.

Third, we gain not only partial or plenary indulgences but we obtain
much spiritual insight and wisdom from our prayers in Eucharistic adoration.
We get to enter into the divine mysteries of our Lord's life. And the
benefits and advantages we derive from the practice of Eucharistic adoration
are all the more increased if we combine it with the practice of Lectio Divina.

Fourth, by our practice of Eucharistic adoration, we join with
millions of Catholics all over the world who pray for the Catholic Church
and its institutions. The mere fact that we are making Eucharistic adoration
is the sure sign of our support for the Eucharist as an institution of the
Catholic Church. And many of those who do Eucharistic adoration may not
realize this but their prayers strengthen our faith in a God who became
Man and who gives Himself to us daily through the Eucharistic celebration
and through adoration of His most blessed Sacrament.

Finally, there are for certain many other benefits and advantages
to practicing Eucharistic adoration in our Catholic lives. We cannot put
them all in this article but we know that there are many such blessings
and graces that can be wrought from the practice of this classic spiritual
exercise in our Catholic tradition. So, let us thank the Lord for the gift
of the Eucharist, especially at this time that we are dedicating a year for
it, and let us follow what the Holy Father is saying about the Eucharist:
"let us heed the call to be 'experts' in the celebration, adoration, and
contemplation of the Eucharist." Let our practice of Eucharistic adoration
be a way of being schooled in the Eucharist so that we may indeed pray
well and be docile to Christ, our Good Shepherd, who is Himself in the
Blessed Eucharist.

Dennis-Emmanuel Cabrera
December 26, 2004
[revised: October 18, 2005]

Articles and Blogs
Praying the Rosary
Lectio Divina
Eucharistic Adoration
Retreats and Recollections
Spiritual Reading
Praying Novenas
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