Service of Adoration Page 1 Year of Faith: Service of Adoration We want this Year to arouse in every believer the aspiration to profess the faith in fullness and with renewed conviction, with confidence and hope. It will also be a good opportunity to intensify the celebration of the faith in the liturgy, especially in the Eucharist, which is the summit towards which the activity of the Church is directed;... and also the source from which all its power flows. At the same time, we make it our prayer that believers witness of life may grow in credibility. To rediscover the content of the faith that is professed, celebrated, lived and prayed, and to reflect on the act of faith, is a task that every believer must make his own, especially in the course of this Year. (Pope Benedict XVI, Porta Fidei) Opening Hymn suggestion - Taizé: Adoramus te, Domine Opening Prayer Lord Jesus, truly present before us in this Blessed Sacrament, we adore you and we praise you. We thank you for your great love for us: the love you showed when you died for us the same love you show in giving us the catholic faith and your real presence here before us. In this time of adoration in communion with our blessed Pope and the whole Church, still our minds and open our hearts to receive all the peace and healing, the grace and truth, you wish to give us. W ask this for you are Lord forever and ever. Amen Pope Francis has called us to celebrate the great gift of the Eucharist by gathering at this hour across the world in humble adoration. In adoration, we stop and in the stillness begin to encounter the Risen Lord - and ourselves - in a deeper way. In adoration we allow God to be the centre of our life, and instead of wanting to
Service of Adoration Page 2 initiate, choose to respond to him your will be done. In adoration we deepen our sense of true Communion with each other, through encounter with the source of all Communion. A Reading from the Letter to the Hebrews (12:18-24) What you have come to is nothing known to the senses: not a blazing fire, or gloom, or total darkness, or a storm; or trumpet-blast or the sound of a voice speaking which made everyone that heard it beg that no more should be said to them. But what you have come to is Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem where the millions of angels have gathered for the festival, with the whole Church of first-born sons, enrolled as citizens of heaven. You have come to God himself, the supreme Judge, and to the spirits of the upright who have been made perfect; and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to purifying blood which pleads more insistently than Abel s. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God You have the message of eternal life. R/ You have the message of eternal life Jesus says, I am the bread of Life, no one who comes to me will ever hunger. R/ No one can come to me, unless drawn by the Father who sent me. R/ And I will raise them up on the last day. R/ Everyone who believes in me has eternal life. R/ I am the bread of life. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever. R/ The bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world. R/ The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. R/ silence background Taizé
Service of Adoration Page 3 The choice you make about the Eucharist is the most important choice you make in your life. Either it is at the centre of your life or it is nowhere: in the end, there is no middle ground. The Eucharist is Jesus reminder that he could have revealed himself in power, but chose to reveal himself in love. (pause) He could have demanded your attention, but chooses to wait for you to come to him. (pause) He could have forced you to serve him, but rather offers himself to you as food. (pause) He is everything, and, in comparison, you and I are nothing, yet his words ring out through the universe, This is my body which will be given up for you. Am I to follow his example or go my own way? If I choose the Eucharist, I am saying yes to God and others, above things and self. I am saying yes to service rather than power. I am saying yes to being appropriately vulnerable - even if it hurts. I am saying yes to Jesus who is dying to help me find happiness in love. Lord Jesus, thank you for this precious gift of your Body and Blood. You have given your all to me. Help me to give my all to you. May my desire for you grow to be as great as your desire for me. May your Eucharist be the centre of my life, for you are Lord for ever and ever. Amen the majority of the service is in silence but can be interspersed with Eucharistic hymns, perhaps the rosary,
Service of Adoration Page 4 especially the 5th Mystery of Light, the Gift of the Eucharist, and/or some of the following quotes, some more catechetical, some more devotional: Paul VI wrote: At the Last Supper, on the night when He was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of His Body and Blood. He did this in order to perpetuate the Sacrifice of the Cross throughout the centuries until He should come again, and so to entrust to His beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial of His Death and Resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet in which Christ is eaten, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us. (Mysterium Fidei) St Cyprian teaches us: Finally the Lord s sacrifices proclaim the unity of Christians who are bound together by a firm and unshakeable charity. For when the Lord calls the bread that has been made from many grains of wheat His Body, He is describing our people whose unity He has sustained; and when He refers to wine pressed from many grapes and berries as His Blood, once again He is speaking of our flock which has been formed by fusing many into one. St Paul tells us: The one bread makes us one body, for though we are many in number; the same bread is shared by all. St Theodore teaches us: The Lord did not say: This is symbol of my body, and this is a symbol of my blood, but rather: This is my body and my blood. He teaches us not to look to the nature of what lies before us and is perceived by the senses, because the giving of thanks and the words spoken over it have changed it into flesh and blood. St John Chrysostom: It is not man who makes what is put before him the Body and Blood of Christ, but Christ Himself who was crucified for us. The priest standing there in the place of Christ says these words, but their power and grace are from God. This is my Body, he says, and these words transform what lies before him. St Augustine: he who wants to live can find here a place to live in and the means to live on. Let him approach, let him believe, let him be incorporated so that he may receive life. Let him not shy away from union with the members, let him not be a rotten member that deserves to be cut away, nor a distorted member to be ashamed of: let him be beautiful, let him be fitting, let him be healthy. Let him adhere to the body; let him live for God on God: let him labour now upon earth, so that he may afterwards reign in heaven.
Service of Adoration Page 5 Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of time (Mt 28:20) Take this, all of you, and eat it: this is my body which will be given up for you (cf. Mt 26:26; Lk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24). Then he took the cup of wine and said to them: Take this, all of you and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all, so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me. John Paul II: To contemplate the face of Christ, and to contemplate it with Mary, is the programme which I have set before the Church at the dawn of the third millennium, summoning her to put out into the deep on the sea of history with the enthusiasm of the new evangelization. (Ecclesia et Eucharistia) John Paul II: To contemplate Christ involves being able to recognize him wherever he manifests himself, in his many forms of presence, but above all in the living sacrament of his body and his blood. The Church draws her life from Christ in the Eucharist; by him she is fed and by him she is enlightened. John Paul II: The Eucharist is both a mystery of faith and a mystery of light. Whenever the Church celebrates the Eucharist, the faithful can in some way relive the experience of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus: their eyes were opened and they recognized him (Lk 24:31). John Paul II: In repeating what Christ did at the Last Supper in obedience to his command: Do this in memory of me! we also accept Mary s invitation to obey him without hesitation: Do whatever he tells you (Jn 2:5). With the same maternal concern which she showed at the wedding feast of Cana, Mary seems to say to us: Do not waver; trust in the words of my Son. If he was able to change water into wine, he can also turn bread and wine into his body and blood, and through this mystery bestow on believers the living memorial of his passover, thus becoming the bread of life. John Paul II: Is not the enraptured gaze of Mary as she contemplated the face of the newborn Christ and cradled him in her arms that unparalleled model of love which should inspire us every time we receive Eucharistic communion?
Service of Adoration Page 6 When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. (Lk 24:30,31) For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. Is 55:8 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. (1 Cor 10:17) A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (Jn 13:34) So Jesus said to the Twelve, Do you want to go away as well? Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God. (Jn 6:67) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God The Word became flesh, and lived among us. (Jn1:1,14) For nothing is impossible with God. (Lk1:37) For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. (Mt18:20) He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 Jn2:2) Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. (Jn17:17) I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. (Jn15:5) Blessed Mother Teresa My answer is prayer. What we need is for every Parish to come before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in Holy Hours of prayer. Blessed Mother Teresa Jesus has made Himself the Bread of Life to give us life. Night and day, He is there. If you really want to grow in love, come back to the Eucharist, come back to that Adoration.
Service of Adoration Page 7 Blessed Mother Teresa: Our lives must be woven around the Eucharist...fix your eyes on Him Who is the light; bring your hearts close to His Divine Heart; ask Him to grant you the grace of knowing Him, the love of loving Him, the courage to serve Him. Seek Him fervently. Blessed Mother Teresa Through Mary the cause of our joy you discover that no where on earth are you more welcomed, no where on earth are you more loved, than by Jesus, living and truly present in the Most Blessed Sacrament... He is really there in Person waiting just for you. Blessed Mother Teresa We cannot separate our lives from the Eucharist; the moment we do, something breaks. People ask, Where do the sisters get the joy and energy to do what they are doing? The Eucharist involves more than just receiving; it also involves satisfying the hunger of Christ. He says, Come to Me. He is hungry for souls. Hymn Closing Prayer Lord Jesus, who in this wonderful Sacrament gave us a memorial of your Passion: grant that we, in worshipping the holy mysteries of your Body and Blood, may within ourselves continually perceive the fruit of your redemption. You who live and reign forever and ever Amen Benediction Divine Praises Blessed be God. Blessed be His Holy Name. Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true man. Blessed be the name of Jesus. Blessed be His Most Sacred Heart. Blessed be His Most Precious Blood. Blessed be Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the paraclete. Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy. Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception. Blessed be her glorious Assumption. Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother. Blessed be Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse. Blessed be God in His angels and in His Saints. Hymn and Reposition Anthem to Our Lady