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Written by Sherry
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Wednesday, 07 February 2007 09:12 |
A intriguing story from Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) on how 12 years of 24/7 Eucharistic adoration has changed a parish. I've heard similar stories of renewal in parishes and even whole dioceses in the US that are tied to Adoration.
But I also know apostolically minded Catholics who have a knee-jerk aversion to the very idea of Adoration because they associate it with a sort of church-mouse spirituality that is all pious devotion and nothing else.
Since I am almost certainly Catholic today because I sensed the presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament when I entered a Catholic church as a college student (See my post on the Arc of Grace from earlier this month) so its hard for me to see Adoration as a problem. But I'm open to the concerns of others.
I do think Adoration is one of Catholicism's greatest and most unappreciated tool for evangelization. And I don't just mean Catholics praying for others in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Why can't we reverently expose the non-baptized and non-Catholics to the presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament much as we would have brought them to Jesus himself in first century Palestine?
A newly confirmed Catholic woman told me this story on the steps of a church in Twin Falls, Idaho.
She was from a Protestant background. Her turning point was attending an evangelization retreat put on by a local Catholic parish. She told me that when the Blessed Sacrament was exposed, she felt a powerful spiritual energy issuing from the Host. "What is that?" she gasped to her friend. Before that moment, she had never imagined what the Church teaches about the Eucharist could be true, that Jesus is really and fully present. But by the time the retreat ended, she had come to believe her Catholic friends were right. A year later, she was received into full communion.
What has been your experience with Adoration? How has it affected you personally? Your friends and family? How has it affected your parish?
For more reflections on this subject, go here.
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