Blog & Pastor Letters

Excerpt from Michael Brown’s book “Secrets of the Eucharist”

09-05-2021Adoration

If we could see just a fraction of the graces available before the Blessed Sacrament, we would flock to the nearest chapel each and every day. When I visited churches to deliver a speech, I could often sense when that church had Adoration. I could sense it because there was a feeling of peace and unusually high Mass attendance.

The Blessed Sacrament draws people. It imbues the church with an aura of holiness. It also draws vocations. A young man wants to feel the Holy Spirit –and if he doesn’t, he is not going to aim for a life that is priestly. Period. It is time to bring back the Holy Spirit.

The best way to do that is through exercising the gifts Christ gave us-reading Scripture, reciting the Rosary, and Adoration. Adoration gives the parish an active chrism. It is dynamic. It becomes the very heart of a vibrant parish. It imbues a radiance. When are we going to realize this-and save our Church, in these crisis times? We need Adoration everywhere. Adoration keeps evil away and invites God’s luminosity, which dispels darkness.

St. Margaret Mary saw the host in this fashion. Often, while praying before the Blessed Sacrament, it came alive to her. It served as a window—a port hole—into the heavenly dimension. It drew her like a magnet. “I could have spent whole days and nights there, without eating or drinking, and without knowing what I was doing except that I was being consumed in His presence like a burning taper, in order to return Him love for love,” said this saint. It was there that St. Margaret Mary found a sense of safety.

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