Adoration In His Presence

Chapel of the Holy Eucharist

“The Eucharist is ‘the source and summit of the Christian life’” (CCC 1324)  Our worship of our Eucharistic Lord, Jesus - fully and completely present under the consecrated species of bread and wine - continues outside of the celebration of the Mass when the sacred Host is exposed for veneration in our chapel.  “This exposition gives us the opportunity for a deep personal encounter with Christ.  The holy and glorious God is constantly inviting us to come to him, to hold converse with him, to ask for such things as we need and to experience what a blessing there is in fellowship with him.”  (Archbishop Fulton Sheen)

Spend Time In His Real Presence

The Advantages Of Being In His Real Presence

Cultivating a Eucharistic life of Adoration bears tremendous fruit in our own hearts and lives.  We cannot spend time in the rays of His Eucharistic Presence without receiving His grace, His love, His mercy, His peace.  As we gaze upon Him face to face, we are transformed little by little into a closer reflection of His divine image.  When we deepen our personal relationship with Jesus by spending time with Him in this way, we will become more like Him, just as old friends or a long-married couple grow more and more similiar.  We become more aware of the obstacles of sin in our life that stand between us and Our Lord.  We develop a stronger desire to make habits of virtue and self-sacrifice in imitation of Him.

Spending time with Jesus in His Sacrament of love will also fill our hearts with abiding joy and bless our days, our jobs, our families, our lives with His protection and grace.  Each hour that we give to Our Lord bears fruit a hundredfold in this life and in the next.

www.adorationpro.org/ihmmi

Lord, I Will Be There.

Lord, I Will Be There.

As Lent begins this week it’s a good time to ask: Is Jesus important enough to me to spend one hour each week to be with Him?  Just one hour once a week is all that He is asking.  Realize that that is only 1/168th of the time He gives you every week.  For us to be with Him that small amount of time every week is simply a matter of putting first things first.  “In everything you do, put God first, and He will direct you and crown your efforts with success.” (Prov 3:60)  We all waste much more time than that sitting in front of the TV or texting.  Why not make a real difference this Lent and spend time in the Chapel in His Eucharistic Presence.

www.adorationpro.org/ihmmi

click on “Weekly Commitment”

Importance of Adoration

The Importance of Adoration

Like so many pilgrims before us, we kneel in wonder and adoration in front of the ineffable mystery which is accomplished in Eucharistic Adoration.  In the Son of God who is given to us, we find rest for our souls and the true bread that never fails — the Eucharistic Bread foreshadowed even in the name of the town of His birth: Beth-lehem, the house of bread.  God lies hidden in the Child; divinity lies hidden in the Bread of Life.

In the book In Sinu Jesu a benedictine monk recorded many locutions he had received from Our Lord concerning the importance of Eucharistic Adoration.  If you are in need of a way to rejuvenate your relationship with our Lord, an easy way to start is to get a copy of this book and let the messages recorded talk to your heart.

www.adorationpro.org/ihmmi

click on “Weekly Commitment”

You Can Become More Like Jesus

More Like Jesus

“Our lives change when our habits change.  Adopting the habit of Eucharistic Adoration will change every aspect of your life.  We tend to emulate the people we spend time with.  By spending time in the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, we become more like Him.”
   (Matthew Kelly - 33 Days To Eucharistic Glory)

Monday Oct 7 Our Lady of the Rosary Memorial

www.adorationpro.org/ihmmi

click on “Weekly Commitment”

Enrich Your Eucharistic Visit

Seek God - Forget Yourself

St. John Vianney gives great advice for our Eucharistic visits.  He said, “When we are before the Blessed Sacrament, instead of looking about us, let us shut our eyes and open our hearts; and the good God will open His.  We will go to Him, and He will come to us, the one to give, and the other to receive.  It will be like a breath passing from one to the other.  What delight we find in forgetting ourselves that we may seek God.”

Join the movement - become a regular Adorer.

www.adorationpro.org/ihmmi

 Faith Grows .. And We Never Have Enough

Jesus tells us in "In Sinu Jesus" that faith in the mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist grows in proportion to the time one gives him in adoration.  It’s not enough that we go to Holy Mass often if we do not approach him and remain with him in the sacrament of his love.  Nothing can replace the intimate experience that he offers to us if we seek his Eucharistic friendship - and this is the experience he offers to us if we seek his Eucharistic Face and offer a sacrifice of time to his Eucharistic Heart.

Won’t you consider a sacrifice of time each week before his Eucharistic Face.  Many people think ‘Adoration’ has to be an hour - not so.  God is happy with 5 minutes if that is all you have.  And if you would spend just 5 minutes a week for a few weeks, you will notice a change of heart.  You can’t ‘out give’ God; so if you give only 5 minutes a week, He might just return Eternity to you.

www.adorationpro.org/ihmmi

God Wants Presence

“You console my Eucharistic Heart by giving me signs of your friendship; of all these, the one that most consoles me is your presence before my Eucharistic Face.  There are many ways of expressing friendship and of responding to the love of one’s friend, but the one that is most satisfying to the heart is the simple act of companionship, of presence, of being together. (In Sinu Jesu: When Hearts Speak to Heart  pg 153)

This is a good time to offer Jesus the gift of your presence, and one of the better ways to do that is Eucharistic Adoration in our chapel, where you can go and pray before the face of our true God almost anytime you want.  You don’t have to be a ‘committed’ adorer to pray in the chapel, you are welcome anytime your schedule permits.

The more time we spend in his presence the easier it is for us to find him not only in the chapel, but everywhere and in everything we do.

“Loving Father, my heart reveals to me that everything that I long for finds its fulfillment in the Eucharist.  Attune my way of thinking to the Eucharist so that I will be responsive to the presence of your Son in whatever comes my way.” (Jesus, Present Before Me - Fr Peter Cameron, O.P.)

Treasured Hour

 A Treasured Hour

“One thing is certain, that next to Holy Communion, no act of worship is so pleasing to God, and none so useful, as the daily visit to our Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament dwelling upon the altar.”   St Alphonsus Liguori

For most of us a ‘daily’ visit is difficult if not impossible.  Our schedules and ‘life’ simply get in the way.  I remember a saying often used by a nun who taught me when I was in the 6th grade; sister often said, “If you really want to do it, you will find a way” (you can probably all relate).  If you really want to spend time with God you will find at least an hour a week for Eucharistic Adoration.  Outside of Sunday Mass that hour will become your most treasured hour of your week - guaranteed.  You will not know the full value and benefit it brings you until you are face-to-face with our Lord.  At that time, Jesus, just maybe instead of listening to all your ‘thank you’s’, will be saying ‘thank you’ to you for spending your time with Him in Adoration.

“For two of the most perfect and powerful means of becoming a saint are Eucharistic Adoration and frequent Holy Communion … because Jesus Christ the saint-maker is present in the Eucharist as He is nowhere else in the world.”  (Peter Kreeft)

God Returns The Value Of Your Time A Hundred Fold

 

If You Want To … You Can Find 60 Minutes

Jesus, so longs for us to visit Him in Eucharistic Adoration that He suffered and died to give us the chance to spend eternity with Him.  What a small thing it is, in the realm of salvation, to stop by the chapel occasionally to say Thank You?  Oh! I know the argument - ‘Jesus is present everywhere - I can say Thank You anytime, anywhere.’  But in the chapel He is present in a very special way; a way you don’t find outside of Mass or Adoration.  He knows how important our time is to us.  When we give Him something as important as our ‘time’, He rewards us a hundred fold.  

“The best, the surest and the most effective way of establishing peace on the face of the earth is through the great power of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.”  St John Paul II

Become a regular on the Adoration Team:  Commit to an hour by clicking here.

Spiritually Lazy

 Spiritually Lazy

“Most Western people are just spiritually lazy.  And when we are lazy, we stay on the path we are already on, even if it is going nowhere.  It is the spiritual equivalent of the second law of thermodynamics: everything winds down unless some outside force winds it back up.”

Scott Peck quoted in Falling Upward by R. Rohr  p.xix

If you find your spirituality in need of a jump start why not make a commitment to spend time in the Real Presence of our Lord during Eucharistic Adoration.  Time in the chapel could be the ‘outside force’ needed to jump start your Spiritual Journey.

www.adorationpro.org/ihmmi

Unique Power of Eucharistic Adoration

 The Unique Power of Eucharistic Adoration

“More good can be done in a single hour of Adoration than in a hundred days of uninterrupted preaching and apostolic labors, for when you are with Me, I am working for you.  Time spent in My presence is not time lost.  It is the multiplication of time and the magnification of your limited strength into an energy that comes from Me, an energy by which I will do great things through you.”

  (In Sinu Jesu  p.223)

“Every Christian needs half an hour of prayer each day, except when we are busy … then we need an hour.”    St Francis de Sales

IHM Adoration Chapel Openings - July 15, 2019

"Nothing in your life is more important than the time you spend in adoration before My Eucharistic Face.  Your energy and your capacity to do other things efficiently and in due order will grow in proportion to the time you consecrate to Me alone."
    In Sinu Jesu  p.178

IHM's Adoration Chapel has the following openings for permanent Adorers.

Tuesday 10-11AM - Open Hour effective August 6

Tuesday 3-4 PM - Open Hour

Wednesday 1-2 AM - Open Hour

Wednesday 8-9 AM  - Open Hour

Wednesday 12-1 PM - Open Hour effective August 7

Friday 6-7 PM - Need partner

If you are able to fill any of these openings you can either register online at: www.adorationpro.org/ihmmi  or by calling Tom Kartes at 616-325-9305.  Call or eMail if you have questions - t.kartes@comcast.net

Adoration of the Eucharist

Adoration of the Eucharist

The basis for all Eucharistic devotion is the fact that Christ in the Blessed Sacrament is the Son of God in human form.

The Eucharistic Food contains, as all are aware, “truly, really and substantially the Body and Blood together with the Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”  It is no wonder, then that the Church, even from the beginning, adored the Body of Christ under the appearance of bread; this is evident from the very rites of the august Sacrifice, which prescribed that the sacred ministers should adore the Most Holy Sacrament by genuflecting or by profoundly bowing their heads.

The Sacred Councils teach that it is the Church’s tradition right from the beginning, to worship “with the same adoration the Word Incarnate as well as His own flesh,” and St. Augustine asserts that:

“No one eats that flesh without first adoring it,”
         while he adds that “not only do we not commit

         a sin by adoring it, but we do sin by not adoring it”

(Encyclical Mediator Dei - 1947 Pius XII - paragraph 129-130)

Everything else depends on this primary article of faith: that the Eucharist contains the living Christ, in the fullness of His human nature, and therefore really present under the sacred species; and in the fullness of His divine nature, and therefore to be adored as God.

www.adorationpro.org/ihmmi

www.ihmadoration.blogspot.com

Pray Always

In early church history the act of praying always was done in collaboration.  In a celebratal monastery in Constantinople (Akoimetai circa 350) the monks performed the office on a shift system:  as soon as one group finished, the worship was taken up by the next group so that unceasingly throughout the twenty-four hours prayer was offered by at least part of the community.

Much like our Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration of today.

Be part of tradition ... join the ranks of permanent Adorers by committing to an hour of Adoration at:

www.adorationpro.org/ihmmi

What is the Point of Eucharistic Adoration?

If you would like information on the meaning of Eucharistic Adoration click on the link below that will take you to a four and half minute YouTube presentation by Fr John Bartunek and Dan Burke that addresses 'What is Eucharistic Adoration and Why is it Important'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Fy7nrWGy8w

To participate in Eucharistic Adoration at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parrish in Grand Rapids follow this link:

www.adorationpro.org/ihmmi

Adoration resources are available on the IHM Adoration Blog:

https://ihmadoration.blogspot.com

Become More Like Christ

As we deepen our personal relationship with Jesus by spending time with Him in Eucharistic Adoration we become more like Him, just as old friends or a long-married couple grow more and more similar.  We become more aware of the obstacles of sin in our life that stand between us and Our Lord.  We develop a stronger desire to make habits of virtue and self-sacrifice in imitation of Him.

If you are not a regular Adorer, maybe now is the time to bring your Jesus relationship to a new level?  Jesus is in the chapel waiting for YOU.

www.adorationpro.org/ihmmi

ihmadoration.blogspot.com

Why Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament?

If we can adore the Eucharistic presence of Christ when reposed in a tabernacle, why do we then need to expose the Blessed Sacrament on an alter?  It is not essential for exposition to take place to have Eucharistic Adoration, yet people report experiencing a greater sense of intimacy with Jesus and attentiveness of mind and heart to prayer when they are able to actually "see" our Eucharistic Lord.  But the best reason for having exposition of the Blessed Sacrament is simply that God wills it.  During His Eucharistic discourse, Jesus made this unmistakably clear: "Indeed, this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks upon the Son, and believes in Him, shall have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day"   Jn 6:40

Learn how you can participate in Eucharistic Adoration at IHM by visiting:

Become a Weekly Adorer