Volume > Issue > The Holy Hour of Adoration

The Holy Hour of Adoration

"COULD YOU NOT WATCH ONE HOUR WITH ME?"

By Carla Marie Coon | June 2000
Carla Marie Coon is a wife and the mother of eight in Johnson City, New York. She edits LifeNews for the New York State Right to Life Committee.

“The time you spend with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the best time that you will spend on earth. Each moment that you spend with Jesus will deepen your union with Him and make your soul everlastingly more glorious and beautiful in Heaven…”

– Mother Teresa

It was a Sunday like any other nearly ten years ago when I answered a call that changed my life. Amid the announcements that typically follow our Sunday Mass was a plea for adorers, a call for us in the pew to consider signing up for one hour a week to help fill the hours needed for a perpetual adoration chapel that had been opened in our area. Because every hour of every day must have an adorer, all such eucharistic chapels need at least 168 participants every week, not including scores of substitutes.

At the time I was expecting twins, (our fourth and fifth children) and directing the Religious Education Program at our parish. I felt a great satisfaction in doing work for the Church. I was sad knowing that soon with the arrival of the twins, I would have to give up that work. Sitting there that Sunday morning, I thought that volunteering for one hour a week was at least something I could still do for Jesus, so I phoned the coordinator and asked what hours still needed filling. I was given the 10 p.m. hour on Friday night.

“You did not choose Me, but I chose you.”

— John 15:16

Enjoyed reading this?

READ MORE! REGISTER TODAY

SUBSCRIBE

You May Also Enjoy

Briefly: March 1989

Reviews of Doctrinal Standards in the Wesleyan Tradition... Correspondence of Flannery O'Connor and the Brainard Che­neys... Patrology, Volume IV: The Gold­en Age of Latin Patristic Litera­ture... Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Exile and Return in the History of Ju­daism... The Ordeal of Civility: Freud, Marx, Levi-Strauss, and the Jew­ish Struggle with Modernity... Against the Protestant Gnostics... Marxism and Religion: A Descrip­tion and Assessment of the Marx­ist Critique of Christianity... Letters of Etienne Gilson to Hen­ri de Lubac... Letters of Marshall McLuhan... The Altruistic Personality: Res­cuers of Jews in Nazi Europe... First Steps in Prayer

Rhetorical Witchcraft

Bush called America "the hope of all mankind" and "the light" that "shines in the darkness," in a clear allusion to John 1:4-5. The remark is very close to blasphemy.

A Primer on Stem Cells

Stem cells found in adult bone marrow, adipose tissue, fetal umbilical cords, and placenta promise equal if not greater results than embryonic stem cells.