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| Eucharistic Adoration,; Perpetual Adoration Quarant Ore Holy Hours | |
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| Topic Started: Sunday, 13. January 2008, 14:12 (604 Views) | |
| John Sweeney | Sunday, 13. January 2008, 14:12 Post #1 |
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I think this subject has been mentioned in an earlier thread but I can't find it. Our parish has a period of Perpetual Adoration from 9am to 9pm every Thursday. At last night's Mass we had an address by a woman from one of the Cardiff parishes urging us to extend and strengthen this practice and she asked for further volunteers. I can see that it is a holy and spiritually uplifting thing to participate in this and I do, However, I parted company with her when she started talking about practical outcomes from th epractice. She said that one parish with seemingly intractable problems had found that these dissolved within a month of Adoration being introduced. She said grandchildren previously unbaptised had been christened and a desperate mother found that after volunteering her heroin addict son had taken steps to clean up his act and was now cured. I find this hard to take. Why would an all-powerful and compassionate God suddenly start dishing out cures and help like sweets because he was asked in a particular way? I know this is a recurring theme of mine in different threads but I still can't get my head round it! John |
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| Rose of York | Sunday, 13. January 2008, 14:21 Post #2 |
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You are honest about it, John. I have come across people who claim that constant prayer, or the right kind of prayer, results in this that and the other. My experience is that it can help us come to terms with life's difficulties, get them in perspective, and come to terms with them. God does work miracles, where and when He will. |
  Catholic and proud of it! Talk to God before Mass. Talk to each other afterwards | |
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| James | Sunday, 13. January 2008, 14:30 Post #3 |
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Well John, I'm afraid I can't fully answer your question. On the laws of averages and probabilities then, if you take a given number of people doing a certain thing you will always find something to use in argument or justification - whatever. Whch may have happened anyway in these particular families without prayer- but then maybe not, who is to say ? It's all very personal and if these people were praying for a certain outcome - then maybe it does happen. But why some and not others.? It's the same at the great shrines - some are cured, many are not. But most will say the experience of the place or in this case the "holy hour", as we used to call it , in front of the sacrament was fruitful and fulfilling in personal ways |
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| Joan M | Sunday, 13. January 2008, 14:43 Post #4 |
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John, spending time in prayer in the presence of Jesus, exposed in a Monstrance, helps all of us to become intimate with God. As human beings we need some sensible, tangible way to better connect. When a parish has Perpetual Adoration (this is 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for all the year except from Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday - not what was described in your opening post. That was Adoration, yes, but not perpetual), there is a definite increase in piety, in spirituality and all its consequences. Those consequences include an increase in vocations to the religious life, an increase in people willing to get involved in the various ministries in the parish, in daily Mass, in Confession, etc. God has many graces (actual and sanctifying) ready for us if we just turn to Him. He will not interfere with our free will, so will not force His help on us. If we do not want Him, He remains holding out His love to us, but will only shower us with His help when we turn to us. No, you're not going to see an immediate 180 degree turn around, but you will see a steady improvement. |
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Peace and love, Joan. The world thrives on lies even twenty centuries after the Truth came among men. The Forge, 130. St. Josemaria Escriva. | |
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| John Sweeney | Sunday, 13. January 2008, 19:57 Post #5 |
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Joan I accept everything you say. And I do find our description of our Perpetual Adoration a bit inaccurate! However, even 24/7 I do not believe that this woud make a compassionate God more likely to offer, say, a cure, than any other prayer. John |
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| Joan M | Sunday, 13. January 2008, 22:15 Post #6 |
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Maybe I'm totally misunderstanding you, John, but I get the impression that you do not see much use for prayer! Perhaps you see prayer mainly as "Gimee, gimee" prayer. Prayer is a lifting of the heart and soul to God. He is our Father and Lord. We should, of course, give thanks, pray in repentance, and worship, too, but there is nothing wrong in asking for our needs - just as it says in the Our Father: give us our daily bread. In some cases, our daily bread may mean healing of body. God wants us to pray to Him. He wants us to fall in love with Him. He is waiting to shower us with gifts and graces. God is far more compassionate than any of us can begin to imagine. In a family when the children behave in the manner that the parents want them to, sincerely and lovingly, there is true peace in the family. It is just the same with us and God. |
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Peace and love, Joan. The world thrives on lies even twenty centuries after the Truth came among men. The Forge, 130. St. Josemaria Escriva. | |
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| Rose of York | Sunday, 13. January 2008, 22:28 Post #7 |
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John takes part in Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. He obviously believes in prayer and adoration.
I think I see John's point. The woman is claiming to know the baptism of previously unbaptised grandchildren and the healing of a heroin addict were the fruits of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, once a week, for two hours, in his parish. She cannot know. It could be that God answered the prayers of people who are unable to attend the church at that particular time. What about my local church? We have no opportunity for any form of worship other than one weekly Mass, on Saturday evenings. We parishioners have to pray at home. God hears us. I wish to make it clear I do not, and would not, ridicule Exposition or Eucharistic Adoration. |
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Catholic and proud of it! Talk to God before Mass. Talk to each other afterwards | |
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| shana buck, sfo | Sunday, 13. January 2008, 22:34 Post #8 |
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John, It isn't that this is some sort of magical thing. God isn't 'more likely' to give because of Adoration than if we are home offering a novena. But we are more likely to really pray before the Blessed Sacrament when we are alone with Him (instead of beginning a prayer, and running to the telephone, and maybe remembering to put in a load of laundry, or to drift off to how we need to balance the check book etc). We are more likely to sit quietly and listen with all our hearts when there are no outward distractions (besides the annoying ones of our imaginations). Our beloved is right there, as face to face as He can get! We are more likely to open our hearts and souls to His Will when we are alone with Him. We are more likely to respond to Graces when we are silent with Him. We need prayer, God does not. We need to Adore our God, and when we do such things, we are able to better seek, to ask, to knock - and then respond to what He desires us to do. Adoration is both private and public work. It is public, because it is in the House of God in a way that anyone can attend, and often more than one gather to Adore for an hour. It is private, because the prayer is mostly silent between the person giving Adoration and the Lord who is there to be Adored. Just as public sinners affect the community (as St Paul says in Corinthians - when mentioning that the reason so many were sick and dying were because of public sinners taking Holy Communion unworthily) the acts of public penance and public prayer bring holiness, healing and peace into a community in a more full way than when those things are absent from a parish. In the Sacred & Immaculate Hearts - shana |
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"There is no triumph without loss, no victory without sacrifice, no freedom without suffering." -- JRR Tolkien "Ours is an age of improved means to deteriorated ends." -JRR Tolkien http://sthubertsrosary.com/default.aspx | |
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| Lilo | Sunday, 13. January 2008, 22:36 Post #9 |
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Do the parishioners not have keys? Even when we had no resident priest in previous years, people were always free to come into the church for private prayer. One group met regularly on Friday mornings for Stations of the Cross and a Rosary. Others simply dropped in for a visit when they were in the area - a very Catholic thing to do. Does anyone remember the old poem: Whenever I pass by a church I stop in for a visit; So that when they roll me in Jesus won't ask, Who is it? |
The root problem in a lot of bad catechesis is ultimately not ignorance, but pride. ~ Mark Shea
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| Rose of York | Sunday, 13. January 2008, 22:43 Post #10 |
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Only a few, and I think that is the Extraordinary Ministers, who are available if there is a sick call and the priest is unable to attend. He is genuinely overworked. Insurance companies have strict rules about how many keys can be given out, even in areas like ours with minimal crime. That is why I say, God hears our prayers wherever they are said. I think everybody missed John's point. If John did not value prayer in the church he would not be taking part. He does take part, he said so in the opening posting on this discussion. |
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Catholic and proud of it! Talk to God before Mass. Talk to each other afterwards | |
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| RayL | Monday, 14. January 2008, 00:26 Post #11 |
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Certainly not all prayers will be answered YES by God if perpetual adoration is instituted in a parish. But, good things will happen to the parish and to the parishioners if perpetual adoration is instituted. To me, it is the key to turning around all of the sin around us. If one goes to perpetual adoration on a regular basis, it is that much harder to look at impure movies, cheat people, hate people, etc. If only more parishes around the world would institute it, especially in Europe. |
No Mary, no Jesus. Know Mary, know Jesus !!
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| James | Monday, 14. January 2008, 00:54 Post #12 |
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I wonder if this is what you meant RayL. You are saying people will still do it but it will be just that bit harder to do. :o |
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| RayL | Monday, 14. January 2008, 01:15 Post #13 |
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James - Since going to perpetual adoration on a regular basis, as well as saying a daily rosary, a lot of my habitual sins have started to go away. I still sin, of course, but looking at my life today versus 10 or 20 years ago, there is lot of difference in the sins I now confess. Regular hours for adoration (say, every Friday at 6PM, or something like that) is really the best over "just dropping in", although that is good too. |
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No Mary, no Jesus. Know Mary, know Jesus !!
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| James | Monday, 14. January 2008, 12:28 Post #14 |
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Thanks RayL. I am on your wavelength now . I sometimes get confused with the way a sentence is put together. Getting old you see !! regards. :) James |
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| John Sweeney | Monday, 14. January 2008, 20:02 Post #15 |
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I agree with everything said by Shana, James and others about the spiritual benefits bestowed by Perpetual Adoration. I don't think I see prayer in a "Gimee, gimee" way as Joan suggests. It was not me but the speaker at our parish Mass--see first posting--who claimed that identifiable practical outcomes had been achieved through Perpetual Adoration. That to me seems highly unlikely and akin to the "gimee" approach so scorned by Joan. Yet this woman has presumably been chosen as a key supporter of Perpetual Adoration and someone who can persuade people to join up. Good luck to her --i just doubt part of her talk. John |
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