New Life Can Be Your's

Jesus Offers You New Life

“The Holy Trinity dwells in our hearts to be loved and adored by grace.  Grace is a participation in the life of the Trinity that flows through the Cross of Christ into the depths of our being.  Producing all kinds of beautiful thoughts and desires, this new life allows God to give Himself to us so that we can enjoy His presence more and more.  A holy thought that moves us to love makes our mind like Christ, and the stirring of holy affections that move us to love and devotion renders our heart like the Holy Spirit.”  (Fire From Above - Dr Anthony Lilles)

No relationship can survive without quality time together.  Find a convenient hour during your week and improve your relationship with God by spending time with him in Adoration.  If you improve your relationship with the Holy Spirit you’ll improve your relationship with the Trinity.  Wow, that’s a force multiplier you can’t deny.

www.adorationpro.org/ihmmi

Loving God Has A Cost

Loving God Has A Cost

If we have a desire to love God as He wants to be loved and thereby merit His fruitful love in return, we must pay the price that this demands.  If we are to love God the way He wants us too we begin by sacrificing our time.  It takes time to pray.  It takes time to do some spiritual reading.  It takes time to visit the sick or shut-ins at home or in the hospital.  It takes time to help some elderly person with shopping or tidying up their home.  It takes time to simply give the gift of yourself to someone in need of companionship.  

God knows how important ‘time’ is to us; and it pleases Him when we are willing to give our ‘time’ to sacrifice our convenience.  Our sacrifice is rewarded with an experience of His presence, a sense of His intimacy, and a joy in our heart that we are doing something good.  And best of all, when we give freely of our ‘time’ God gives us an abundance of it.

It’s OK to begin small … start with a short visit to the Adoration Chapel to pray.  Every few days try to repeat this practice and soon you will be amazed at how much ‘time’ you have to get things done.

                                                                                 www.adorationpro.org/ihmmi
                                                                                                       click on “Weekly Commitment”

Motivation Reinforced

 Motivation Comes From Being In His Presence

When we visit Jesus in Eucharistic Adoration he rejoices over all that we are doing for him.  He never says, “It’s not enough. 

You need to do more.”  He never says, “You need to serve me more.”  He never says, “You’re not faithful enough to me.  You need to work harder.”  Rather, he blesses us and pours out his love on us, knowing that this is enough to compel us.  He tells us how pleased he is with us, and that experience of God’s pleasure motivates us to lay down even more of our lives.  To put it more simply, his love for us calls more love out of us.  It may be hard to believe, but Jesus is even more eager to be with us than we are to be with him!
Renew your motivation by spending time in the Adoration Chapel.

                                                                   If you give God a chance He will win!
                                                        www.adorationpro.org/ihmmi

Listen to God's Invite

God’s Invitation

Need time to catch your breath and put a little normalcy back into your life?  As in all things, God is ahead of us because he gives us a standing invitation to step away from the busyness and noise of everyday living when he says in Matt 11:28-29, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”

You can find that ‘rest’ spending time in His Real Presence in the Adoration Chapel.  The beauty of this ‘rest’ is that you don’t have to do anything but show up.  You simply sit in His presence and God does the work.  All you need is a little trust.  How much easier do you want it?  This action of sitting in His presence changes us from the inside out by lifting us up and giving us renewed direction and energy.

Join the many of your fellow parishioners who have made ‘chapel time’ a regular component of their prayer life and found this divine support to be priceless.

www.adorationpro.org/ihmmi

Adoration Is Magical

 Feel The Magic

Having celebrated Thanksgiving last week I hope we all were able to spend time consciously thanking God for His many blessings and demonstrate our faith in His continued support and the gifts He bestows on us.  

At the time, immersed in busy holiday schedules, we may not have been thinking: “can we ever thank Him enough; can we ever out give Him; or ever love Him to the same level He loves us?”

As you head to Adoration this week remember how blessed we are to live in a place and at a time we do.  In spite of our troubles, our misguided direction, and the selfish movements of entitlement and relativism, there is still one practice that will nourish and help you grow in this world and prepare you for a better life in the next … and that is the gift to simply sit in His real presence.  It’s magical - you don’t have to do anything in Adoration - just sit in His presence and He does the work, and you leave a better person.  When was the last time you did nothing and became a better person?  God can make this happen.

Advent starts next week … why not make a commitment to spend time each week in His presence in preparation for Christmas.  It doesn’t have to be the same block of time each week and you don’t have to sign-up to be a permanent adorer.  Choose a time convenient for you and go sit in His presence and feel the magic.  On Christmas morning you will be able to give Him a gift He truly appreciates - your time!

Jesus Is Not Alone

Jesus Is Not Alone

There’s a world of difference between knowing God through study and knowing God through love - let your love shine by spending more time in His presence and the presence of so many others.  Jesus is never, ever, alone in our chapel … His Father is with Him, the Holy Spirit is with Him, His Mother is with Him, the patriarchs and profits are with Him, the Apostles are with Him, all the angels and saints are with Him … if you’re not a regular adorer, why aren’t you with Him?

As we transition from Summer to Fall this may be a good time to make a commitment to spend time with other members of the Body of Christ in committed adoration.  Simply go to www.adorationpro.org/ihmmi - click on “Weekly Commitment”, then add your name to any hour that would be convenient to your schedule.  Do it now while it’s on your mind.

Celebrate God's Love

Celebrate God’s Love

The resurrection changed everything.  For here is a God who cares.  Here is a God who loves you enough to suffer for you.  Here is a God who actively seeks your welfare and intervenes on your behalf.  Here is a God who is near and personal.  Here is a God who loved you even before you loved Him.  Here is a God who gave His life for you, so you might know His love and live with Him in eternity.

Wow!  And you can’t find time to spend one hour a week in His presence?

The Church gives us Eucharistic Adoration as an important way to build our relationship with God.  If you are not spending “kneel time” in the chapel - I hope you are spending time formulating an answer to the question Jesus will ask when you see Him face to face in judgement … “Why didn’t you take advantage of the opportunity to be with Me?”

Sometimes I think our judgement will not be so much about what we did wrong; but more about the opportunities we missed.

Window to Heaven - 3

 A Window to Heaven - 3

“Our Lord Jesus Christ is as much present in our tabernacle, and our Adoration Chapel, as He is at the Vatican, or Jerusalem, at Lourdes or Fatima or any other holy place to which people travel.  In fact, no place on earth is more holy than our Adoration Chapel.  Every Mass, every consecration, is a miracle, greater by far than any other, really: for God to come into matter and transform it into Himself is far greater than His creating that matter in the first place.

That is why, Catholics have always shown a special reverence in their churches by genuflecting when entering the presence of the sovereign King who is really and truly there; by assuming stances of adoration, kneeling, or keeping silent in His presence, for it is in fact, God who is present, and by keeping silent we have a better chance of hearing what He has to say to us.

His presence is called “real”, for in the end, it is not we who are real, the piece of consecrated bread a mere symbol; no, our reality in this earthly form is padding away.  Right now we have this human form, but what we shall be is up to God, and none of us has seen it, this side of death (1 Jn 3:2).  We, who seem so real, are really mere phantoms of a day, our flesh grass that will pass away as we fall into the inscrutable mercy of God.  But now He comes to us as nourishment, as the food of life.  And as we change, we shall come to see the face of Him who has chosen to be among us as one who serves, and who serves by giving us His Body to eat, His Blood to drink, His presence to adore.”

      (Father Raymond T. Gawronski, S.J.)