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Pope Francis often mentions the importance of Eucharistic Adoration in his speeches, even if it is just a sentence to highlight how Catholics need to rediscover this practice. In a recently published letter, for example, Pope Francis asked his envoy to the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, Filipino Cardinal Antonio Tagle, to “encourage a more vigorous worship of the Eucharist.”
As the National Eucharistic Congress opens its doors from July 17 to 21, 2024, Aleteia has compiled a list of five elements Pope Francis has emphasized about Adoration in the last year, to help Catholics and the Church.
1
The importance of adoration for our time
One of the phrases that Pope Francis has repeated often is that Adoration is essential for our world today and the Church needs to rediscover this practice. An example is when he spoke to the organizing committee of the National Eucharistic Congress in the USA in June 2023.
“I believe that we have lost the sense of adoration in our day. We must rediscover the sense of adoration in silence. […] Too few people know what it is,” the Pontiff emphasized. “It is up to the Bishops to catechize the faithful about praying through adoration. The Eucharist requires it of us. In this regard, I cannot fail to mention the need for fostering vocations to the priesthood […]. We need priests to celebrate the Holy Eucharist.”
“It is my hope, then, that the Eucharistic Congress will inspire Catholics throughout the country to discover anew the sense of wonder and awe at the Lord’s great gift of himself and to spend time with him in the celebration of the Holy Mass and in personal prayer and adoration before the Blessed Sacrament,” he said.
2
Adoration helps us understand our lives better
In September 2023, addressing the members of the Rogationists of the Heart of Jesus and the Daughters of the Divine Zeal, a male and female order founded by St. Hannibal Mary Di Francia, Pope Francis emphasized how adoration gives us a new perspective on and understanding of our lives.
“When one places oneself, docile and humble, before God, often one receives a specific understanding of the meaning of one’s own life: It is in faithful and unwavering prayer, in particular in adoration, that everything assumes harmony, that one grasps more clearly one’s aims, finding in the Lord the strength and the light to put them into practice according to his plans,” the Pontiff said.
“Prayer is the connecting thread that runs through the life of St. Hannibal. His own vocation — ‘unexpected, irresistible, very sure,’ as he testifies — appears clearly to him while in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament,” the Pope explained. “This was his experience, but it applies to everyone: Without prayer one cannot remain standing and one does not know where to go. It is therefore important that there be a prolonged dialogue with the Lord every day, and then an invocation to him before every important moment, every meeting, every decision.”
3
Adoration is how we embrace incarnation
During Francis’ homily for the midnight Mass of Christmas in December 2023, the Pope highlighted how adoration allows us to truly experience and embrace Jesus’ incarnation and presence in our lives. He also cited the Holy Family and the Magi as an example to achieve this.
… to adore is not to waste time, but to make our time a dwelling-place for God.
“In Bethlehem, as crowds of people were caught up in the excitement of the census, coming and going, filling the inns and engaged in petty conversation, a few were close to Jesus: Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, and then the Magi. Let us learn from them. They stood gazing upon Jesus, with their hearts set on him. They did not speak, they worshipped,” the Pope said.
“Adoration is the way to embrace the Incarnation. For it is in silence that Jesus, the Word of the Father, becomes flesh in our lives. Let us do as they did, in Bethlehem, a town whose name means ‘House of Bread.’ Let us stand before him who is the Bread of Life. Let us rediscover adoration, for to adore is not to waste time, but to make our time a dwelling-place for God. It is to let the seed of the Incarnation bloom within us; it is to cooperate in the work of the Lord, who, like leaven, changes the world. To adore is to intercede, to make reparation, to allow God to realign history.”
4
Adoration is how we discover God’s limtiless love
“To love is to adore.” This is what Pope Francis told the priests, religious, bishops and others, who participated in the Synod on Synodality in October 2023. He explained that through adoration we can concretely understand God’s love for us.
“Adoration is the first response we can offer to God’s gratuitous and astonishing love. The amazement of adoration, the wonder of worship, is something essential in the life of the Church, especially in our own day in which we have abandoned the practice of adoration,” he said. “To adore God means to acknowledge in faith that he alone is Lord and that our individual lives, the Church’s pilgrim way, and the ultimate outcome of history all depend on the tenderness of his love. He gives meaning to our lives.”
“In worshiping God, we rediscover that we are free. That is why the Scriptures frequently associate love of the Lord with the fight against every form of idolatry,” the Pope continued. “May the Church adore: in every diocese, in every parish, in every community, let us adore the Lord! Only in this way will we turn to Jesus and not to ourselves. For only through silent adoration will the Word of God live in our words; only in his presence will we be purified, transformed and renewed by the fire of his Spirit. Brothers and sisters, let us adore the Lord Jesus!”
May the Church adore: in every diocese, in every parish, in every community, let us adore the Lord!
5
Adoration is a path to evangelization
The National Eucharistic Congress will be the starting point of a year of missionary sending, or the last phase of the National Eucharistic Revival. Pope Francis has in fact spoken about how adoration is fuel for evangelizing.
“When we remain in contact with the face of Christ, seeking him in the Scriptures and contemplating him in silent adoration before the tabernacle, we come to see him in the faces of those we serve and experience an interior joy that, even amid hardship, brings peace to our hearts,” the Pope told the bishops, clergy, and other pastoral workers of the Church in Mongolia, during his visit to the country in September 2023. “A Christian is one who is capable of adoration, worshiping in silence. And then, out of this adoration springs activity.”
“We have lost the prayer of adoration; and everyone, priests, bishops, consecrated men and women, need to recover it, this ability to be quiet in the Lord’s presence. Mother Teresa [of Calcutta], busy about so many things in life, never neglected adoration, even at times when her faith was shaken and she wondered if it was all true or not,” the Pope said to the bishops, clergy, and other members of the Church in Portugal during his visit for the 2023 World Youth Day.
And today we celebrate...