Adoration

"In order to reach Christ, it is not necessary to reach back in time to the days of his earthly life. It is enough to enter a church and to draw near to the tabernacle. We find him there. We can speak to him. We can listen to him. We can adore him. Let all of us who are faithful Catholics, kneel before the Eucharist and worship."

St. John Paul II

St. Mark's in Sea Girt
 Fridays beginning at 11:45am. Benediction at 1:45pm

St. Catharine in Spring Lake
Wednesday Following 9:00am Mass-11:45am

St. Rose in Belmar
Monday 7:00-8:00pm

St. Teresa Calcutta
Ascension in Bradley Beach
Wednesday 8:30am-7:00pm

Holy Innocents in Neptune
Thursdays 5pm (Virtually). https://www.facebook.com/HolyInnocentsNeptune/

1. Make a Gratitude Bucket

Eucharistic Adoration means adoring God in the Eucharist. And that word eucharist means thanksgiving! One of the first things I like to do in a Holy Hour is to make a gratitude bucket.

Spend some time thinking of all the things you’re grateful for. Thank God for each of them and as you, imagine placing them in a bucket.

Whatever comes to mind, thank Him for it. Even if it’s a bad thing, thank Him for the good in it — or for still being good and faithful, even if the thing is awful and sucky.

I call it a gratitude bucket because at the end, I imagine Jesus picking up that bucket and pouring it all over me. ALL the blessings. I mean, Malachi 3:10 says that God will “open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.” (Mal 3:10)

2. Sing a Hymn

The hymns are some of the most beautiful expressions of our faith. When you’re struggling to know what to do in Adoration, try singing quietly to yourself.

Singing calms your mind and helps you focus on the Lord. It expresses what you want to be doing, praising God with your whole heart, even if you’re struggling in the moment.

The Scriptures encourage us to sing psalms and spiritual songs (Eph 5:19), so pick a favourite hymn or song and hum it quietly to yourself and Jesus.

3. Prostrate Yourself

Sometimes in Adoration, we can get so stuck inside our own heads. But our bodies are sacramental. They express our innermost being and, by our bodily actions, we train ourselves. Every time we kneel or prostrate ourselves in Adoration, we’re not only adoring the Lord. We’re also training ourselves to adore Him more fully.

If you can, try prostrating yourself, or at least kneeling, before Our Lord. Simply focus your mind on Jesus in the Eucharist and really feel the act of adoration.

4. Imagine Yourself the Gospel

I’m not an expert in Ignatian Spirituality at all. But this is one aspect I’ve used and loved.

Grab your bible and open to a passage from the Gospels. Read it slowly. Then read it again. Then, imagine yourself in that Gospel passage. Where are you? What are you doing? Describe the sights and smells. What is Jesus doing?

This kind of contemplation on the Gospels and the person of Christ is particularly powerful in Eucharistic Adoration because Jesus really is there!

5. Breathe the Jesus Prayer

The Jesus Prayer comes from the Eastern Orthodox tradition and it combines beautifully with a quiet meditation.

Sit up straight and place your hands on your lap or knees. Pay attention to your breathing and slow it down to a steady rhythm. After a few breaths in-and-out, you can add the Jesus Prayer. According to Metropolitan Kallistos Ware,

Often the first part, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God’, is said while drawing in the breath, and the second part, ‘have mercy on me a sinner’, while breathing out.

Met. Kallistos Ware, Jesus Prayer Breathing Exercises

6. Examine Your Conscience

Examining your conscience can be a scary thing. So doing it in the presence of Our Lord only makes sense.

Simply ask our Lord, who knows and loves you more than anything, to show you your sins.

Don’t just leave it at what you’ve done though. Ask Him where He is growing you right now and where He desires freedom for you.

7. Praise God through the Creed

If you want to truly praise God but don’t know where to start, try the Creed. The Creed is a much neglected Catholic prayer. We say it at Mass and at the beginning of the Rosary, but otherwise, we don’t really think about it.

Slowly recite the Creed. At each line, pause and praise God for that mystery. For example, praise Him for being our Father and meditate on what that means. The move on to “make of heaven” and then, “maker of earth.”

To deepen this prayer, you can search for the hidden Eucharistic significance of each article of faith. God is Father? Well, fathers provide food for their children. God made heaven and earth? The Eucharist is God made flesh, willingly becoming part of His own creation to save His creation.

8. Spend Time with the Saints

This idea came from a seminarian friend who used to ask St Therese of Lisieux, his little sister in the Holy Spirit, to sit with him in Adoration.

Ask your favourite saint to come and be with you in Adoration. Imagine them sitting or kneeling besides you.

Pay attention to their posture and their attitude. Ask them how they would adore our Lord in Adoration. Ask them to tell you how they trusted Him even in difficult times.

9. Write a Love Letter or Poem to Jesus

The Bible is God’s love letter to us, full of tenderness and the unbreakable promise of His love.

But it’s a beautiful thing to also use our creative gifts to give something to Jesus. I often find it easier to clarify my thoughts and figure out what I’m actually thinking when I can write it down.

To give more structure though, it’s great to write a letter or poem to Jesus. This, I find, keeps me a little more on track than generic journalling!

10. Renew Your Memories

Go back to a difficult or joyful memory in your childhood and sit with it in the healing presence of Jesus.

Pray for the renewing grace of the Holy Spirit first. Then bring the memory to mind. Ask God to show you where He was in that memory. Feel the emotions again but in the light of His love and with the benefit of hindsight.

This can be such a powerful thing to do because we realise that our Lord really was with us through thick and thin.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.

Romans 12:2

11. Pray the Rosary as Slowly as You Can

St John Paull II encouraged us to pray the Rosary during Adoration, as a way of lingering before the “Eucharistic Face” of Jesus.

Often, I’ve resisted to praying the Rosary in a Holy Hour because I’ve heard it droned through relentlessly so many times, disrupting the silence and banishing any sense of contemplation.

But the Rosary is and can be a deeply contemplative prayer.

In your Holy Hour, pray it slowly — extra slowly — and allow the words to wash over you. Spread the mysteries out and take plenty of silent time in between.

And if you’re up for it, meditate on the mysteries of the day as Eucharistic mysteries. It’s one thing to meditate on the crucifixion. But what does the crucifixion reveal about the Eucharist? And what does it show us about the true nature of the crucifixion?

12. Tell Jesus About Your Week, One Day at a Time

Tell Jesus about your week. Sometimes this is incredibly easy but honestly, sometimes my mind goes blank.

You way to share with our Lord is to tell Him about each day, one day at a time. Tell Him about Monday, then Tuesday, and so on.

The advantage of breaking it down is that it often brings to mind things we might otherwise forget.

13. Intercede for Loved Ones

Interceding for others during your Holy Hour is a beautiful and powerful thing.

Picture your loved ones, one by one, and imagine bringing them to Jesus. Maybe you’re all standing together at the foot of the Cross? Maybe you imagine visiting them with Jesus. However you do it, bring each person to mind.

Then give thanks for them, being specific about how they are a blessing to you and others. Ask God to look after them, requesting what they really need and desire.

Sometimes, I like to imagine placing them in the Sacred Heart of Jesus at the end. Because that is ultimately my prayer for them and for every one.

14. Read an Entire Book of the Bible

An entire book?

Okay, hear me out here.

The Old Testament can be daunting and difficult to read. One way is to do it slowly, a bit at a time. Or… you can just knock it out in one go!

Pick a book or big section of the Bible Old Testament and read it through. You won’t pick up on all the details but you’ll probably get a better sense of the overall message and underlying structure.

15. Question the Lord

If Jesus were right in front of you, what would you ask Him?

Well. If you’re in Eucharistic Adoration, Jesus is right in front of you. So ask Him.

Think about the Catholic teachings that have always bugged you or questions you’ve always had. Ponder and chew over them in His presence and listen attentively to the answers.

It doesn’t have to be a difficulty of course. You can also ponder mysteries. For example, did you know that Our Lady would have received the Eucharist, probably from the hands of St John? Or that all the Eucharistic Miracles in the world share the same blood-type?

16. Read that Theological Treatise

Sometimes, when my mind is going to Crazy Town and back, I resort to theology. For some people, theological reading is dry and difficult. But I adore it. (It means I have to be careful not to turn my Holy Hour into Reading Hour…!)

Print out or buy a copy of the papal encyclicals, the Catechism, or a theological work and read it. You don’t need to buy expensive books. (Full disclosure. I will never take my own advice on this point.)

Maybe start with St John Paul II’s encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia? Or if you’re a book-lover, I’ve heard incredible things about In Sinu Jesu: When Heart Speaks to Heart — The Journal of a Priest at Prayer by a Benedictine Monk.

When you come to adoration, put aside every anxiety and care of yours, and allow the Holy Spirit gently to unite you to the prayer that rises from My Eucharistic Heart to the Father. Every need of yours is contained in the prayer I offer to My Father. Be at peace.

In Sinu Jesu: When Heart Speaks to Heart — The Journal of a Priest at Prayer

17. Offer Up Distractions

Let’s be real. If you’re spending time in Eucharistic Adoration, you’re going to get distracted at some point.

It’s just an unavoidable fact. Rather than either getting frustrated with yourself or pretending like it doesn’t matter, choose to offer up your distractions.

18. Let Jesus Love You

Finally, just let Jesus love you.

Ask Him to fil you with the love from His Sacred Heart. Ask Him to tell you why He loves you. And thank Him for the good things about you.

I don’t mean this as an exercise in vanity. But a lot of us struggle to see ourselves as God sees us. That is the mark of true humility. To see the good in yourself. A friend once asked me to write a list of five good things I liked about myself and I couldn’t do it.

But I went to Adoration and I sought the love of Jesus.

And He just loved me.

Conclusion: It’s Not About What You Do in Adoration

Ultimately, it’s not so much about what you do in Adoration as the spirit in which you do it.

I have a friend who likes to plan his week out during his Holy Hour. What could be a mundane and practical activity of scheduling becomes a moment of encounter and surrender, as he places the week before the Lord and invites the Holy Spirit to guide him in all his planning.

And I love that.

But if it’s more about the spirit than the externals, it also means we need to trust.

If Adoration was just about ticking off the box, it would be easy. Say a few prayers, kneel for ten minutes flat, and then geta outta there.

But it’s about being with our Lord Jesus. Lingering in His presence, resting in His embrace, sitting at His feet, and allowing the waves of His love to roll over you like the ocean.

That means there are no shortcuts or easy hacks.

Jesus doesn’t want your activities, however productive or well-planned.

He wants your heart.

So the next time you’re off to do a Holy Hour or pop in for a quick Jesus-Chat, maybe pick one of these ideas and see how He uses it. Place yourself in His love, seek His face, share your heart, and let Him love you.