Adoration at Home

April 7, 2020 Adoration at Home

“For, overall, the glory of the Lord will be a canopy and a tent to give shade by day from the heat, refuge and shelter from the storm and rain”.

(Isaiah 4:6)

Adoration at home is designed to help us imagine ourselves praying before the Blessed Sacrament in a church or chapel. If you have a picture of Jesus in your house, or a crucifix or statue of the Sacred Heart, as you read these reflections from the Saints, you might like to place it near you. Alternatively, think of yourself as being in St John Fisher Church -or another that you know well. Christ the King, for example, has a live feed where you can see the Blessed Sacrament in front of you.

Let us begin our prayers of longing to receive Jesus in communion, knowing that he is with us as we raise our hearts and minds to him as real as he is in the Eucharist.

We start with the thoughts of our patron ,St John Fisher, by thinking about the sanctuary lamp beside the tabernacle:

“If we will be purified before God, we must have three things, to wit, true faith, good actions and right intent. For a candle that is in a house without its light is understood as faith without good works…. Now I call the wick that is within the wax right intent. For Saint Gregory says ‘if you do a work in public hold its intention in secret’.”

We next think about Jesus within the tabernacle and recognize that he is also where we are sitting, kneeling, or lying at this moment:

We are guided by the words of St John Henry Newman:

“To myself, with many others, it is the presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament which is the relief and consolation for all troubles… What can I do better than call on you to go to Him who is your life and your strength ? Who can do everything for you -who loves you and who desires your love. What can harm you, if you place your hopes; wishes, doubts, difficulties into His hands; if you put your thoughts into His keeping, and beg Him to conform your heart to His heart, and your Will to His will. He will make allowances for you, which no man can make -and give you strength, illumination, and peace, which the world cannot give. It is but rational in you to put away your doubts, and to trust Him unreservedly. I pray God to enable you to do this”.

(Letters and Diaries XXV, p.156-7)

As St Mother Teresa reminds us:

“Your Life must be woven around the Eucharist. Direct your eyes to Him who is the light; bring your hearts very close to His divine heart; ask Him for the grace to know Him, for the charity to love Him for the courage to serve Him. Seek Him longingly”.

Then, St John Henry Newman invites us to:

“Put yourself then, my dear child, into the hands of your loving Father and Redeemer, who knows and loves you better than you know all of yourself. He has appointed every action of your life. He created you sustains you, and has marked down the very way and hour when he will take you to Himself. He knows all your thoughts, and feels for you in all your sadness more than any creature can feel, and excepts and makes note of your prayers even before you make them. He will never fail you -and He will give you what is best for you. And though He tries you, and seems to withdraw Himself from you, and the afflicts you, still trust in Him, for you will see how good and gracious He is, and how well He will provide for you. Be courageous and generous, and give Him your heart, and you’ll never repent of the sacrifice”.

(Letters and Diaries XXll, p.247)

As we draw our meditation to a close, we are encouraged by St Theresa of Liseux:

“For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy”.

To conclude we say:

O Sacrament most Holy

O Sacrament divine all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment thine. (x 3)