Adoration

Adoration: 

What exactly does the word adoration mean? If you look the term adoration up in the dictionary, the following are the definitions you will see: deep love and respect, worship and veneration. These are powerful words and emotions, yet their true power lies in the action of humility, for to adore, one recognizes that the object or person being adored is more important than themselves or anything in the world. What or whom do you adore and bestow upon adoration? Has the definition and meaning of adoration been misplaced in today’s society? I wonder...

In the Catholic Church, the term adoration is given to honor Jesus in the Holy Eucharistic—Eucharistic Adoration. I was born a cradle Catholic, but honestly I didn’t understand or appreciate the beauty and devotion Eucharistic Adoration expresses until I was in my early twenties. It was when I started sitting quietly before the Lord, present in the Holy Eucharist, on a weekly basis during graduate school, that I came to realize the beautiful gift we had been given. I’d always believed that Jesus was present in the Eucharist because that’s what I’d been taught by my parents, but I don’t think I truly felt what I believed until I sat and prayed in adoration. I remember a time not long after this realization, I was with my parents and siblings and we were hiking stone steps, in Northern Kentucky, that start at the bottom of a large hill and end at a church on the top of the hill. Every Good Friday, the rosary is said on these steps, and I thought about that as we climbed. When we reached the top and went into the church, there was Jesus on the altar, displayed in a monstrance for Eucharistic Adoration. It was surreal! It was like we had just competed a journey and there was Jesus waiting for us at the end!

Have you and your family ever attended adoration together? It’s a beautiful way to pray before the Lord and invite him into your hearts and family. I remember the night my husband proposed to me. He’d written me a letter and mailed it to me earlier in the week asking to take me out on a date Friday night. So on Friday, after dinner and before the Nutcracker ballet, he drove us to the “King of Kings” and we prayed together in Eucharistic Adoration. I will say the whole time we prayed all I kept thinking was,“Oh my goodness he’s going to ask me to marry him in front of my Father.” 

My husband ended up asking me to marry him at the end of our evening, but praying together in adoration before our engagement was a beautiful time we had with the Lord. Now married and with a young family, we’ve taken our children to adoration several times. Even if you have young children, try taking them to adoration, even if you only can spend five or ten minutes in prayer. Helping your children see the beauty of praying to the Lord in adoration is something you will not regret and a way to help foster their prayer life and build a firm faith foundation. 

I’ll leave you with these words below from a prayer I felt inspired to write during a time I spent in Eucharistic Adoration in 2011 on my continuing faith journey; and my hope that you and your family will try going to adoration and allow the Lord to speak to your heart in prayer too!

“Prayer for Unbelievers”

On my hands, on my knees, down before you God of peace. I implore you, hear me please, mercy for those with unbelief. Show them Lord, lead their lives. Guide their hearts into the light. Help them seek, help them find. Let them see though now they’re blind. Here we sit, here we know, in adoration hearts aglow. For those who are lost, let them be found. Fill their hearts with grace profound, that they may grow, that they may understand and know, that you are Lord of all around; that you are the one, the only one, the Lord of life and God of love. The God who is here, who will not leave, who saves us from sin and everything. Whose word alone can save our souls, whose word alone can save us from the grave. Who gave his son, who made the stars, who knows and calls us each by name. Cast out the doubts within their hearts, save them from unbelief. My God, My God, my Father, to you my heart does speak. On my hands, on my knees, down before you God of peace. I implore you, hear me please, mercy for those with unbelief.