Really present - really

 For the LORD takes delight in his people... - Psalm 149:4a

Adoration  By Sr. Sarah Hennessey, FSPA - 8/23/13 (Sacred Heart Parish- St Mary's School ~ Owatonna, Minnesota (USA).  Sr Sarah is a former Quaker.)

My family never understood adoration. My friends even less. As a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration, the medal around my neck portrays a monstrance. Most people have no idea what it is. And if I try to explain that it "holds the Blessed Sacrament exposed" people get even more confused.

I want them to get it but I do not know even how to begin.

Jesus loves us so much that his true and glorified body becomes really present under the simple sign of bread. He wants us totally and as gift he lets us gaze upon him in the consecrated host. Jesus' resurrection really happened and because of that he is able to remain with us through the grace of the Eucharist. Gazing upon him is suddenly intimate and healing and calming and an intense way to experience Real Presence.

My first experience of adoration was before I even knew about a tabernacle. I sat before this box in a Catholic church and was filled with a warm spirit of love and peace. My heart burned with love for the Eucharist and I began my journey to became Catholic.  Jesus is really here and he wants me to just spend time with him. Often I find that people new to the Catholic Church, or someone in trouble just come off the street, or someone like my Methodist grandfather discover they have a hunger for adoration. It may not make sense or fit into the brain but Jesus' presence is real.

What do you do in adoration? Just ask a child. The fourth graders at St. Mary's told me all the ways that they like to spend time with Jesus. I love this list of "25 Ways to Spend an Hour with Jesus." http://mostholyrosary.org/childjesus/PDFs/25ways.pdf

My Franciscan community has been praying in adoration around the clock for 135 years and eight days. At each hour when we change adorers we stand and pray together a prayer that I think says it all:

O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine

All Praise and all Thanksgiving be every moment Thine

Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, grant Peace to the World

Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration

Perfume of prayer

May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up

of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.  - Psalm 141:2

 

 

"Yes, I am happy, perfectly happy; and do you wish to know where I find true happiness? At the feet of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. …

I would strongly urge that, even as the Magdalene anointed the Lord’s feet with tears and perfumed oil, you too would pour out the perfume of constant prayer and contemplation at the foot of the tabernacle. I should like the Eucharist to become a burning flame for your soul, so that, immersed in that flame, it might emerge burning with love and great-heartedness.

I should like to see this Eucharistic altar, on which Jesus is sacrificed, accept your offering too, so that you may become a victim of love, whose perfume rises to the throne of the Eternal God!"

Fr. Augustine Mary Of The Most Blessed Sacrament

Carmelite priest  (1821 to 1871)

 

Mary Magdalene washes the feet of Jesus ~ Basilica of the Annunciation -~ Nazareth, Israel

 

St Mary Magdalene

Disciple of Jesus

Feast Day – July 22

“The story of Mary of Magdala reminds us all of a fundamental truth. A disciple of Christ is one who, in the experience of human weakness, has had the humility to ask for His help, has been healed by Him and has set out following closely after Him, becoming a witness of the power of His merciful love that is stronger than sin and death.” – Pope Benedict XVI

Click here: ST ANSELM's prayer to MARY MAGDALEN

 

St Mary Magdalene, pray for us! 

One thing I ask of the Lord, this I seek,

to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. – Psalm 27

TODAY:

Sr Amelia (Hueller) ~ FINAL VOWS

as a Dominican Sister of St Cecilia - Nashville, TN

Cathedral of Incarnation ~ 9:30 AM Mass

Click here: Dominican Sisters -

 

Let us pray in thanksgiving and JOY for her "yes"!