Oh, How I Love Adoration!

Came out of Mass two Saturdays ago and there was a sign on the Perpetual Adoration Chapel that it was closed until further notice.

That was very upsetting especially when I found out that someone had left the Blessed Sacrament exposed with no one there as a guardian.

We had a meeting on Sunday to discuss the situation.  Seems like what started out “gung ho” 4 years ago has started to fizzle out so that we only had about 100 of the 336 guardians that we needed to keep Perpetual Adoration going.  So we decided that we would try to fill two days a week from 12 noon until 9 p.m. with our hundred and start over as it were.

We haven’t been able to fill those hours completely so when I showed up for my hour on Monday at 7, the chapel was still closed.  I went into Church and “paid a visit” to the Blessed Sacrament but it wasn’t the same.

You see, I have been a committed guardian for 4 years.  It’s awfully hard to stop this so suddenly.  Yes,  my faith tells me that Jesus is there in the tabernacle in Church the same as He is in the monstrance in the chapel.  Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.  I can also accept Father’s admonition that “it’s the same.”  Intellectually, that is.

But there is a place deep inside my heart that doesn’t feel the same when I am seated in the lighted church (that seats 1,500 people comfortably.)  When I am in the chapel with one other person, in that intimate, low-lit space, I can feel the angels (especially my guardian) and I can feel Jesus sitting quietly beside me.  We are like two people married who are comfortable not saying anything and just knowing that the love is there between them.   It’s the same feeling that I have after receiving Holy Communion–His arms around me and mine around Him, me telling Him I trust Him and He telling me that He loves me.

I’m praying that we will fill up those 3 hours in the middle of the day on Monday and Tuesday so I can “guard” Him again.  I know when I go in there for the first time after being “locked out” for so many weeks, He will throw His arms around me and I will hear Him whisper, “I missed you.”

Then, again, maybe we won’t.  We’ll have to see.