St. Faustina Adoration Chapel

1. Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
2. Why Eucharistic Adoration?

Adoration of the
Blessed Sacrament

Silence, prayer, and meditation: a daily routine in Sauk Centre's St. Faustina Adoration Chapel.

Each week, from 1:00 in the afternoon on Sunday to Saturday morning at 10:00, the Blessed Sacrament is exposed as Catholic Christians practice Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration. This kind of devotion is special, one worshiper explained, because "in church Jesus is enclosed in the tabernacle. In the chapel we believe we see Jesus face to face."

Church rules say that when Jesus, present in the Blessed Sacrament, is exposed in a monstrance, He cannot be left alone. Sitting up with Him is a traditional Catholic devotion called Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration. This devotion recalls the time in Gethsemane, hours before His crucifixion. Jesus said to Peter and Zebedee's two sons, "my heart is nearly broken with sorrow. Remain here and stay awake with me." (Matthew 26:28)

St. Faustina Adoration Chapel The Blessed Sacrament, displayed in a monstrance. On the wall, a picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a replica of the San Damiano crucifix, and a picture of St. Faustina

Holy Hour, prayer in the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, is a Catholic tradition in which followers of Jesus continue the watch made by Peter and Zebedee's sons.

Some Catholic Christians make a Holy Hour once a week, some once a day. In her diary, St Faustina wrote that the Heart of Jesus is so pleased every time someone makes a Holy Hour of prayer, that everyone on Earth is blessed by God.

In Sauk Centre, about 300 Catholic Christians make Holy Hours at the St. Faustina Adoration Chapel: followers of Jesus still keeping watch, almost two millenia after that night in Gethsemane.

Prayer at the chapel began, officially, on Divine Mercy Sunday of 2002: April 7. This date was chosen because a chapel like this should be opened on a feast day, and Divine Mercy Sunday seemed the best choice. The opening ceremony involved a short procession from St. Paul's church to the chapel, next door.

Worshipers carried three icons: a picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary and another of St. Faustina. The third icon was a replica of the San Damiano crucifix, the one through which God spoke to St. Francis. Fr. Todd Schneider, of St. Paul's, led the procession. Fr. Schneider, quoted in the Sauk Centre Herald (April 16, 2002), explained that because the chapel was inaugurated on Mercy Sunday, "we named it after St. Faustina: the first declared saint of the new millennium."

Those of us in that procession on that Divine Mercy Sunday walked single file into the chapel. There, one by one, we genuflected and walked out again. The ceremony was silent, except for the sound of our feet on the floor.

"It's a real blessing for the parish and the whole community," Fr. Schneider was quoted as saying in the Sauk Centre Herald article.

And, from what we read in St. Faustina's diary, what is happening here is doing good throughout the world.

Why Eucharistic Adoration?

From remarks made by Barbara Uphus, February 28, 2004,
at Our Lady of the Angels church.

As Catholics, we believe in the real presence of Christ in the holy Eucharist. As Pope Gregory VII wrote:

I believe in my heart and openly profess that the bread and wine placed upon the altar are, by the mystery of the sacred prayer and the words of the Redeemer, substantially changed into the true and life-giving flesh and blood of Jesus Christ our Lord, and that after each consecration, there is present the true body of Christ which was born of the Virgin, and offered up for the salvation of the world, hung on the cross and now sits at the right hand of the Father, and that there is present true blood of Christ which flowed from his side. They are present not only by means of a sign and of the efficacy of the Sacrament, but also in the very reality and truth of their nature and substance.

What a blessing that is. Only in the Eucharist is Christ present with the wholeness of his divinity and his humanity. When we spend time in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament we encounter holiness second only to Mass. In fact, Pope John Paul II has said, "our communal worship at Mass must go together with our personal worship of Jesus in Eucharistic adoration in order that our love may be complete." Jesus waits for us and embraces us when we visit him in Eucharistic adoration.

The purpose of Eucharistic Adoration is to provide us with an opportunity to spend time with our Lord. It is an opportunity to console Jesus; and it is an opportunity to converse with Jesus and bring him our concerns, our griefs, our worries, our joys, our pain and our sins. When you spend quiet time with Jesus, you allow him to speak to your heart and give you peace.

There are also many parish and community benefits to adoration. The parish benefits include a strengthening of faith, an increase in mass attendance and the reception of sacraments and an increase in vocations to the religious life.

Currently 226 adorers have signed up for a weekly hour of adoration at the St. Faustina Chapel. They choose their scheduled hour - with our without a prayer partner - and they (and their prayer partner if they have one) are responsible for that hour every week. When we first heard about adoration, my husband Mark and I each signed up for a different hour because we have small children, but we really were concerned that we might be taking on too much, and that it would be difficult to make this a part of our life. Now, we both feel that this hour is essential to our faith journey and we would not have it any other way. Eucharistic adoration has changed our hearts and changed our lives.

If your choose an hour with a prayer partner, you have the security of knowing that if you cannot be there for a certain week, you need only make sure that your prayer partner will be available. If you choose an hour without a prayer partner, as I have, you will only need to find a substitute when you can't be there, from the list of 45 available substitutes.

Many of you may be feeling that you are interested in visiting the chapel, but don't want to commit to a weekly hour. Please know, that you are welcome to stop in anytime, and stay for as long as you like.

When you enter into the chapel's reception area, we ask you to sign in. By signing in, you are helping us verify that our Lord is never left alone. When you enter into the chapel, most people do a double genuflection (that is - on both knees) before the holy Eucharist, but those unable to do that simply bow or give some other appropriate sign of deep respect to our Lord. Non-scheduled adorers stay as long as they like. Often people come in - even at my late evening hour - and stay for only 10 or 15 minutes. Other non-scheduled adorers come for an hour or more at the same time every week, but simply prefer not to be "scheduled."

I have had people ask me: What do you do when you get there? The answer is, whatever you choose. Some people come and pray the whole hour; others spend their time reading the Bible or other spiritually enriching books, or sitting in silent conversation with God. I usually do some praying, followed by some reading or meditating. During Lent, I am going to be reading Fulton Sheen's The Life of Christ. I think this season of Lent is a wonderful time to simply contemplate and meditate on Christ's life and passion. For those of you who have or will see The Passion of the Christ, the Chapel is the perfect place to reflect and meditate on the film. Christ can speak to your heart in so many different ways when you give him the opportunity to do so.

I hope that I have been able to give you all a little more information about perpetual adoration and that many of you will decide to visit our chapel sometime during Lent - maybe several times during Lent - and avail yourselves to the benefits and blessings that await you.

(Thanks to Barbara Uphus, for providing the text of her remarks - Brian H. Gill, webmaster.)

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