While many are familiar with St. Gerard Majella and his heavenly intercession for pregnant mothers, few are aware of his deep devotion to the Holy Eucharist during his life.
According to the early-20th-century biography The Life of Saint Gerard Majella, he would take every opportunity he had to spend time before Jesus in the Eucharist.
Father Margotta said Mass every day in the Church of the Oratorian Fathers. After Mass Gerard used to spend the whole morning hidden away in a corner, generally stretched as though lifeless on the pavement. He also visited with great assiduity any church in which the Blessed Sacrament was exposed for the Forty Hours Adoration.
He did this because of his great love of Jesus, knowing that he was truly present in the Blessed Sacrament.
For this reason, St. Gerard is a great patron of Eucharistic adoration and we can pray for his intercession, asking God to increase in us a similar love and devotion.
St. Gerard true lover of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, do thou who didst kneel long hours before the Tabernacle, and there didst taste the joys of Paradise, obtain for us we pray thee, the spirit of prayer and an undying love for this Most Holy Sacrament, that receiving frequently the Body and Blood of Jesus, we may daily grow in His holy love and merit the priceless grace of loving Him even to the end.
And today we celebrate...