Our final look at
the beautiful Catholic practice of Eucharistic Adoration comes from Blessed
Teresa of Calcutta.
I make a holy hour each day in the presence of Jesus in the
Blessed Sacrament. All my sisters of the Missionaries of Charity make a daily
holy hour, as well, because we find that through our daily holy hour our love for
Jesus becomes more intimate, our love for each other more understanding, and
our love for the poor more compassionate. Our holy hour is our daily family
prayer where we get together and pray the Rosary before the exposed Blessed
Sacrament the first half hour, and second half hour we pray in silence. Our
adoration has doubled the number of our vocations. In 1963 we were making a
weekly holy hour together, but it was not until 1973, when we began our daily
holy hour, that our community started to grow and blossom. That is why I encourage
you to… through Mary, the cause of our joy, you may discover that no where on
earth are you more welcomed, no where on earth are you more loved, than by
Jesus, living and truly present in the Blessed Sacrament. The time you spend
with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the best time that you will spend on
earth. Each moment that you spend with Jesus will deepen your union with Him
and make your soul everlastingly more glorious and beautiful in heaven, and
will help bring about an everlasting peace on earth. (Come to Me in the Blessed
Sacrament, Apostolate for Perpetual Adoration)
…Prayer makes the heart large enough until it can contain
God’s gift of Himself. Ask and seek, and your heart will grow big enough to
receive Him and keep Him as your own.
The following are prayers that we say every day from our
prayer book. I hope they may be helpful if you do not know any prayers, or would
like to know more.
Let us all become a true and fruitful branch on the vine Jesus, by
accepting Him in our lives as it pleases Him to come: as the Truth- to be told;
as the Life – to be lived; as the Light – to be lighted; as the Love – to be
loved; as the Way – to be walked; as the Joy – to be given; as the Peace – to be
spread; as the Sacrifice – to be offered, in our families and within our
neighborhood.
O God, we believe
You are here. We adore and love You with our whole heart and soul because You
are most worthy of all our love. We desire to love You as the Blessed do in
Heaven. We adore all the designs of Your Divine Providence, resigning ourselves
entirely to Your Will. We also love our neighbor for Your sake as we love
ourselves. We sincerely forgive all who have injured us, and ask pardon of all
whom we have injured.
Dear Jesus, help
us to spread Your fragrance everywhere we go. Flood our souls with Your spirit
and life. Penetrate and possess our whole being, so utterly, that our lives may
only be a radiance of Yours. Shine through us, and be so in us, that every soul
we come in contact with may feel Your presence in our soul. Let them look up
and see no longer us, but only Jesus!
Stay with us, and
then we shall begin to shine as You shine; so to shine as to be a light to
others. The light, O Jesus, will be all from You, none of it will be ours; it
will be You, shining on others through us. Let us thus praise You in the way You
love best by shining on those around us.
Let us preach you without preaching, not by words but by example, by
the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what we do, the evident
fullness of the love our hearts bear to You. Amen.
Deliver me, O
Jesus:
From the desire of
being loved,
From the desire of
being extolled,
From the desire of
being honored,
From the desire of
being praised,
From the desire of
being preferred,
From the desire of
being consulted,
From the desire of
being approved,
From the desire of
being popular,
From the fear of
being humiliated,
From the fear of
being despised,
From the fear of
suffering rebukes,
From the fear of being
calumniated,
From the fear of being
forgotten,
From the fear of
being wronged,
From the fear of
being ridiculed,
From the fear of
being suspected.
(Mother Teresa, A Simple Path, compiled by Lucinda
Vardey, Ballentine Books, 1995)
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