The Christmas gift to the Holy Father was presented in the form of a "spiritual bouquet" - a leather folder describing the Adoration for Vocations campaign and the countries of those who participated in this campaign.
Posted on 01/07/2004 6:55:57 AM PST by NYer
VATICAN CITY, JAN. 6, 2004 (Zenit.org).- A Web site that aimed to log 100,000 hours of eucharistic adoration for vocations as an gift for John Paul II ended up surpassing its goal.
The site, www.vocation.com, logged more than 125,000 hours by the time its six-month campaign for eucharistic adoration ended on Christmas Day.
Catholic faithful from 41 countries logged in their time spent praying before the Blessed Sacrament with this intention. Participating countries included Australia, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, India, China, South Korea, Brazil, Mexico, the United States, Britain, Zimbabwe, Kazakhstan, France, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria.
Last Friday, officials representing Vocation.com presented the results of the campaign to the Pope in a private audience. The campaign was a Christmas gift celebrating the 25th anniversary of his pontificate.
The Web site, sponsored by the Legionaries of Christ and the Regnum Christi movement, has resources for young people considering vocations.
Legionary Father Anthony Bannon responds to questions sent in to the site, and a database of the Q&A's is available online. The site also includes vocation promotion materials for download, and a free weekly ShoreLines newsletter.
The Christmas gift to the Holy Father was presented in the form of a "spiritual bouquet" - a leather folder describing the Adoration for Vocations campaign and the countries of those who participated in this campaign.
“When you look at the crucifix you understand how much Jesus loved you then. When you look at the Sacred Host you understand how much Jesus loves you now.” - Mother Teresa of Calcutta, whose order of nuns blossomed worldwide once they began Eucharistic Adoration.
History of Eucharistic Adoration
Did you notice the source? EWTN!! Thank you Mother Angelica!! Can't tell you how that channel has changed my life.
Please notify me via Freepmail if you would like to be added to or removed from the Adoration Ping list.
What I learned From a Muslim about Eucharistic Adoration
Bishop Calls for Perpetual Adoration of Eucharist
Worship is wonderful and necessary, but logging the number of hours seems very odd.
Lol! I'm sure it is ; sadly, your protestant upbringing prevents your from opening up to the glory of Our Lord through this ancient form of devotion (scroll up and click on the lin to the History of Eucharistic Adoration)
Imagine for a moment that we are living in Jesus’ time and He has invited us to visit with Him and share a meal with Him. Knowing who He was, we would be humbled and honoured by this invitation. We would put all our effort - our whole self - into being there with Him.
The good news is that Jesus IS here with us today - body, blood, soul and divinity – in the Eucharist. Although Jesus comes to us under the appearance of bread and wine, His presence is as real to us NOW as He was real to His disciples when he walked this earth. He can perform miracles, heal us, teach us, love us; we can talk to Him and He can speak to us through His Word (Holy Scripture) and through the Holy Spirit who lives in us through our baptism.
Jesus, who is Love, invites us to come to Him, to share our lives with Him, to love Him, to simply be present with Him in this Most Blessed Sacrament.
As Christ said to his sleeping disciples in the Garden at Gethsemane,
Could you not watch with me one hour?
As catholics who believe in the Real Presence, to spend one hour in Eucharistic Adoration is to be in the Presence of our Lord. It defies description.
And so, as they say, there's the rub. You believe that Jesus, the Creator God of the Universe, the One Who sustains the entire universe, resides in the material substance of the piece of unleavened bread you call the "Host."
We Protestants believe that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father...that, as He said, He is present with us always, and that He is not "entombed" in any substance made with human hands.
I believe in the Real Presence of our Lord and Saviour...He resides in my heart. He promised to send another Comforter when He departed...and He always keeps His promises.
Just because a "practise" or "tradition" is ancient, does not make it right.
We Catholics also believe that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father. We do not believe that he is "entombed" in the Eucharist.
John 6:30 begins a colloquy that took place in the synagogue at Capernaum. The Jews asked Jesus what sign he could perform so that they might believe in him. As a challenge, they noted that "our ancestors ate manna in the desert." Could Jesus top that? He told them the real bread from heaven comes from the Father. "Give us this bread always," they said. Jesus replied, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst." At this point the Jews understood him to be speaking metaphorically.
Jesus first repeated what he said, then summarized: "‘I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’" (John 6:51–52).
His listeners were stupefied because now they understood Jesus literally—and correctly. He again repeated his words, but with even greater emphasis, and introduced the statement about drinking his blood: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him" (John 6:53–56).
Notice that Jesus made no attempt to soften what he said, no attempt to correct "misunderstandings," for there were none. Our Lord’s listeners understood him perfectly well. They no longer thought he was speaking metaphorically. If they had, if they mistook what he said, why no correction?
On other occasions when there was confusion, Christ explained just what he meant (cf. Matt. 16:5–12). Here, where any misunderstanding would be fatal, there was no effort by Jesus to correct. Instead, he repeated himself for greater emphasis.
In John 6:60 we read: "Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’" These were his disciples, people used to his remarkable ways. He warned them not to think carnally, but spiritually: "It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life" (John 6:63; cf. 1 Cor. 2:12–14).
But he knew some did not believe. (It is here, in the rejection of the Eucharist, that Judas fell away; look at John 6:64.) "After this, many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him" (John 6:66).
This is the only record we have of any of Christ’s followers forsaking him for purely doctrinal reasons. If it had all been a misunderstanding, if they erred in taking a metaphor in a literal sense, why didn’t he call them back and straighten things out? Both the Jews, who were suspicious of him, and his disciples, who had accepted everything up to this point, would have remained with him had he said he was speaking only symbolically.
But he did not correct these protesters. Twelve times he said he was the bread that came down from heaven; four times he said they would have "to eat my flesh and drink my blood." John 6 was an extended promise of what would be instituted at the Last Supper—and it was a promise that could not be more explicit.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?" (1 Cor. 10:16). So when we receive Communion, we actually participate in the body and blood of Christ, not just eat symbols of them. Paul also said, "Therefore whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. . . . For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself" (1 Cor. 11:27, 29). "To answer for the body and blood" of someone meant to be guilty of a crime as serious as homicide. How could eating mere bread and wine "unworthily" be so serious? Paul’s comment makes sense only if the bread and wine became the real body and blood of Christ.
The early Church took John 6 literally. In fact, there is no record from the early centuries that implies Christians doubted the constant Catholic interpretation. There exists no document in which the literal interpretation is opposed and only the metaphorical accepted.
Visits to the Blessed Sacrament are powerful and indispensable means of overcoming attacks of the devil. Make frequent visits to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and the devil will be powerless against you.
--
St. John Bosco
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