When do I act??

Yes, when do you actually move. Both a statement and a question. If you are like me, I quickly shelve the entire idea because it is not currenlty part of my routine and haven't figured out yet how to make it part.

So I started pausing while reading the bulletin and seeing that monstrance. For those who may not be familiar the monstrance is often a beautifully gilded home for the Blessed Sacrament. It has a glass center so that you can see it. It is much different than being in front of the tabernacle where you know God is present in the Eucharist but the door is locked. He is right there in our midst in the monstrance.

I'm not a theologian and I'm not doing this to purport knowing more than I know. I have and always have believed in transubstantiation and I am not a skilled debater of these matters. So you'll have to enter into that with another higher level of intelligence than my own.

So over the course of several years!!!! MIND YOU!! I would wonder what was that all about anyway. Well it happened to be summer of 2000, and I had time and was in town and had no way out. The call was so loud and so distinct. The Holy Spirit had me occupied with strong thoughts of realization that I could go. It was a first Friday during the summer. I remember going when it was later in the evening thinking many people wouldn't be there then. What a crazy thought!!! How are you supposed to learn if there are no people there!!!???

But there were, maybe six other men plus me! Yeah good thing I worked with mostly men so I wasn't too intimidated. This was a nocturnal adoration society I believe, and they had modified that even to begin at 6:00p.m. and go until 12:00 a.m. Plus the men were nice about making me feel part of it as though I knew what they were doing!! Wow!!

There were these handbooks, thank the Lord for organized Catholicism!!! So we'd read the readings and psalms selected, and then say the rosary. I had never done anything like this. And after the first time, I was hooked. I was part of something bigger than myself. For sure more worthwhile than anything I could come up with on my own. I so looked forward to the next month I couldn't wait.

Well this went on for several months, as many as I could make which were most. I felt as though I could not disappoint our Lord, He was counting on me to show up. There were so few of us, I was making a difference. I was worried about the Poor Souls in Purgatory. I wondered who prays for them....the Nocturnal Adoration Society does thats who. So began my calling for the Poor Souls. I just realized how connected that is to where I am now spiritually. Man the Holy Spirit does so much when we cooperate with Him.

So I felt, this dutiful participation, because someone needed to and I didn't mind being in the background keeping the Blessed Sacrament company and praying. Then I met my future husband, and I kept going- it had become such a part of me. Funny thing happened in the fall, I began going to an earlier time due to daylight and found the group to be mostly women. Wow, what a shock, and when I grabbed the book I had been using this woman scoffs, "That is the men's book." ??????What??????? But they were right, and wow the women were different!! I tried to fit in and it was difficult at first but then they adopted me after several months of me proving my seriousness. That is also funny now thinking back on it.

So for over a year, I didn't move or act, and then finally Holy Spirit gives me no outs, and like that you can't get me away. Even when I was engaged I persisted. It was good mostly because it was formed, a procedure, an expected event.... did I miss?? Oh sure, there were months I failed to go. But Jesus is not going to just let you go, He's always going to find a way for you to grow.

In summary, it's okay to be unsure of what to expect. A couple of years later it turned into just hourly adoration, and was fairly open and mostly independent prayer. It's really okay to just go and sit for 30 minutes. I missed the group unison prayer but made the transition still. Take some paper, or your bible and just be with God. He's right there with you and He will bring you where He can, if you let Him lead you. But if you are like me and just haven't fit it into your crazy list of things-to-do, no problem, you know you hear Him in your heart and He won't stop calling you. When you go, Jesus nevers disappoints. It is sometimes hard though at first to overcome the "What am I really doing? Does it mean anything?" cycle.

This was the same time as I started teaching CCD, and then the wedding, and then the baby. All bringing me into different experiences with Jesus.

Goodnight and blessings to you!!

Who does this?? Longings........

I know, that is what I thought. Who in the world goes to Adoration?? When I was a young girl in Catholic school, often I would go during recess to sit in the church in prayer or listen to sounds, probably God talking to me. Oh I was 7, 8, and even 9. I thought I had been called to greatness and then somehow I got the feeling no I wasn't good enough or holy enough to be a saint. I guess I let our world convince me of that. Then I made my own decisions and phhh those weren't always the best. With the backdrop of Catholicism and a great faith and decent knowledge....I left to college 1983. Long story short, stayed and was Catholic and participated as much as I could between football games, parties and dates. Which actually was probably what saved me from myself really. A retreat even!! Before I left college, 1 semester before, I was diagnosed with a tumor in my eye- my eye had to be removed. Yes a prosthetic eye. Ugh! I was 21. It was a huge test of my faith, but I know my heavenly Father held my hand on the way to that surgery room. Even afterward, many blessings came my way to help me get myself together. And wow, it took like 7 years!! WHAT!??? A faith-filled Catholic took 7 yrs to heal???!! It did.

So I know what does all of this have to do with Eucharistic Adoration?? Well, you know Jesus continues to call to us, no matter how sad, depressed or lonely we are. No matter how wanton, addicted, or lude we are. Now I wasn't measurably worse than other young single women I knew. But I wasn't idyllic either. Again went along w/ the pursuit of what I thought it was to be Catholic, attending mass and sacraments, but just didn't strike me as shall I say- unique?

When I was around 32, at my lowest, I had purposefully said I do not need you any more God. You have not provided me with what I keep asking for and hence...I will go on my own. And I walked. I still cannot believe I ever was so prideful as to utter these words, but I did aloud. No more mass, well maybe here or there b/c Jesus calls us. We need Him. I was still single, my business was suffering, my personal life was yuck! So I met up with some friends at a 'non-denominational' bible study. WARNING- if any young person reads this ever, let me emphatically say, "THERE IS NO SUCH THING". The hidden speak is anti-Catholic....it is a way for your 'friends' to suck you away from the truth. You may have not even discovered the truth fully yet in your walk with Christ and that's okay. But that's it, "Let's save them from the Catholic church."

So in this 'bible study' we had a leader, okay, he was a minister of some sort, okay. Then we speak in tongues, even okay with that....Holy Spirit man He moves how we do not always know, so okay. Now we have communion.................WHAT??!!! I participated in this hideous re-production w/ this loaf and this grape juice......oh please ya'll don't even know. I know what Eucharist is!!!!!!!!! I had it!!!!!!! And that is when I could hear Jesus' voice again.

Mass became something I made a point of going to, and inserting myself into, taking it all in. Oh there were bad days that made me just cry. I was in desperation of knowledge. And I would see this monstrance in the bulletin for first Friday Adoration, over and over each month. Why would I read it?? Why would I ponder how I could get there?? (I worked out of town A LOT at the time.) But I was soon to find out.

Okay so it's me who goes, 42 yrs old. Engineer. Single-married with baby!!! That is who goes. If you are 25, 34, 45- GO you will see others there. I am not perfect. I am a sinner. I am, to know me, is to wonder has this even helped you?? You are determined, persistent- GO! You are shy and indecisive- GO! You are a mom - GO! dad-GO! student- GO! Mom- take your baby - GO! Infirm? Okay maybe you can't go so often!! But I even have an answer for that........this online adoration I used this summer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMGosh....what a relief!! to have found it!! Truly, saved me and got me even more close to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Okay, hubbie is going to wonder why am I up still on computer....night and blessings!!!