My God, we believe, we adore, we hope and we love thee! adoring the eucharistic jesus.

  Early this year I started really committing myself to Eucharistic adoration. At first, it was really difficult for me to sit still and quiet. This struck me as interesting since I certainly did not have any issues with belief in the real presence. My soul was not able to sit quietly with Jesus yet, but what I found was that the more I "practiced" this devotion to adoration, the more natural it became. 

   It all started when I was leaving Holy Rosary Parish one day and noticed a flyer pinned to the board. It said that an adorer was needed for a certain hour and if I were interested to call. I thought, "This is my chance! I've been saying I wanted to pray a holy hour and now I can sign up for one!" So, I called and started going to my one scheduled hour each week. 

   At first, my mind would wander, and my thoughts would be scattered. I knew Jesus was there with me, literally in the same room, and I just kept asking Him to help me focus on adoring Him. I kept going, week after week, and during this process of being distracted and asking Him to help me, I arrived at a place where I wasn't asking Him anymore. I'm not sure how long it took for this to happen, but eventually, I realized that I was forgetting to look down at my watch and when I finally did, I had five minutes left! I noticed that I would be gazing up at the beautiful monstrance, knowing that I was looking at Jesus and everything else in the room would become blurry. Everything and everyone else would fade away until all I could see was Jesus in the Most Holy Eucharist. It was the most beautiful sight to me! There were times when I wold start to cry and it would hit me that here I was, sitting in front of God Himself, spending this hour adoring Him, instead of some other selfish activity I would have been doing only a year ago. 

    I started to want to spend more time with Him and soon I was going to adoration once a day. Oh, how I treasure that hour with Jesus every day, when I can just sit and gaze at Him in the monstrance, telling Him with my presence how much I love Him. Telling Him each time I enter the Church, "I'll stay awake with you Lord, I'm here with You, You don't have to be alone....I am here, My Love....."
My soul would whisper these things to Jesus, and I could feel Him loving me back in the most profound way. I could feel how happy it made Him that I would come and sit with Him for an hour. That what I was telling him by me being there was, "I'm not too busy for you, Lord. You are a priority to me. You are always on my mind."

    I often will sit and read spiritual books as well, like the Diary of Saint Faustina or the Diary of St. Gemma Galgani. Through their writings I am really able to feel the Communion of Saints and I know I am part of a much larger family than I even realize. I keep a relic of St. Gemma and St. Margarete Mary Alacoque close to my heart all throughout my day. I ask them to help me to be holy, I ask them to show me how to love Jesus. 

     Each holy hour, each day...I fall deeper in love with Him. He is my love, my life, He is everything to me. 

      If you have been thinking about Eucharistic Adoration and haven't taken the plunge, I urge you to make time. Start small with one hour a week, then see where your heart leads you....Go and see what Jesus has to say to you in the quiet of your soul. 

       Someone once told me, "You can't love someone you don't know, and you can't know someone you don't spend time with!" This was such simple, yet profound, advice! The more time you spend with Jesus, the more you will get to know who He is, and the more you will love Him. 

-Pax Christi