Thursday, March 19, 2009

Like Magdalen at the Sepulchre

(Subtitled "Yet Another Good Reason to Have Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration in Your Parish" or alternatively "Moms of Young 'Uns Show Up without Notice (most of the time).")

Last evening, I was able to scrape together a few spare minutes and managed to get out of the house without my entourage and into a local parish, so as to spend a few moments in silent adoration of our Eucharistic Lord . Joe was home for the night with zero outdoor work plans, we just wrapped-up dinner, the kids were all fed and happy, and even Leopold had a full belly and empty diaper. The DH was willing to do the supper clean-up if I "just hurried up and got out the door without lolly-gaggin' so Rosemarie'd stop saying 'coat!'."

So off I went - alone (alone!?) - to a quiet chapel, expecting be able to flop my wearied and thirsty self down at the feet of Jesus in person. Just for a few mintues, which were, to me, worth their weight in gold.

I, like M. Magdalen, went with great hope and expectation to the place where I knew Jesus's Body would be, needing to be with Him. And, when I showed up, they had taken Him away.

This was not my home parish, so of course I didn't read the bulletin wherein, I am sure, the priest had noted the early reposition of the Blessed Sacrament on that day. Gotta accomodate the Lenten Mission. But I had gone to Him in great haste, holes-in-the-knees jeans and all (Joe was shooing me out the door, remember?), desiring to lay myself down to pay homage to the King of kings by simply being with Him. To watch and pray with Him. But He was gone.

Gone because of human scheduling conflicts.

*sad face*

The moral: Every parish needs perpetual adoration! Sometimes we need to be with Jesus unexpectedly, at weird hours, in the stillness of dawn like Mag, or just for those few minutes of sanity that descend upon the home right after supper time. What can i do to help make this happen? Anyone? Anyone?

2 comments:

JRH said...

I second that! I loved being able to stop in yesterday - unplanned... unexpected (by me anyways!)

Anonymous said...

Having Adoration requires commitment & that is a tough one for people today. At Holy Angels, it's hard to get people to commit for one hour a month! I do believe that IF we just take time for Adoration ( without exposition), that eventually we will move to exposition. Of course, we have had Exposition on the First Friday of each month for 20 years at Holy Angels & still have trouble getting at least 2 or 3 people to commit to each hour so that the Blessed Sacrament does not get left unattended! I had thought that by this time that would no longer be a problem. There have been times when I have been there alone- like the week we invaded Iraq. All I could think was -Why is no one here? We are at war! And, of course, we are still at war & it's not just a military battle, but a spiritual battle for which we need spiritual weapons. As with all else, I believe each of us just needs to set priorities & make commitments & then trust that somehow, sometime, the Lord will bring forth fruit. Mom S. And, for this one- Adoration, there are lots of people who are retired, who could pick up the slack. I'm not sure where they are hiding! I believe they need some powerful preaching to prod them out of their lethargy.