Eucharistic Adoration: Spending time with Jesus

By Karen Riobo

Eucharistic Adoration is one of the most important practices in our Catholic Church. During adoration, we are praising and spending time with the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, our King and Saviour. Spending time in adoration can bring us peace, consolation, joy, and healing. God is indeed found everywhere and even in the silence of our heart we can be in His presence, but the Eucharist is Jesus himself. What a gift it is to be able to visit with Jesus every day of our lives. 

Spending time with Jesus. 

We were made for a relationship, just like the Trinity, the love between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is shared among them and also with us. We can partake of that creative, healing, and supernatural love daily in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. Jesus wants to know what is in our hearts and desires for us to share our vulnerability with Him. Through spending time before the Blessed Sacrament we can be healed, we can receive direction and we can just pour out our heart to our friend. 

Surrendering our burdens, thoughts, situations at the feet of Jesus can help us receive in return, the peace that we need. Spending time with Jesus can help us change our mood, as we empty ourselves to receive all the graces set out for us that day by God. 

Having an intentional relationship with God changes our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh over time. As we listen to our Lord speak truth to our hearts, He can inspire solutions to our problems and provide for our lack.  

Every time we go to adoration, we are saying YES, to God’s invitation to be with Him, to receive His graces. I encourage you to follow the promptings of the Spirit whenever you feel an inkling to spend time with Jesus in adoration.  

Identifying roadblocks to spending time with Jesus. 

Perfectionism: There is no right or wrong way to spend time with Jesus, the visit may depend on your mood; sometimes we just feel like sitting in the room for an hour looking at Jesus basking in His goodness, and other times we may want to pray with the Rosary, read a book, read scripture, work on a letter, write in our journal, or read a devotional. No matter how the Spirit may lead you, show up!  Jesus just wants to be with you. 

Structure: If you want to make it into a routine, get organized and create a timeline for your “holy hour”. You can start with a prayer of thanksgiving, next devote time to intentional prayer with your needs and desires followed by writing in a journal. Last, stay in silence asking like Samuel “Speak, your servant is listening”. 1 Samuel : 3 . 

Not believing in the real presence:  I grew up going with my mom on Thursdays at our parish and followed everything she would do. I would kneel and touch the floor with my forehead, I would pray with her the rosary and just be still. Back then, I was not fully aware of the real presence of Jesus Christ. I knew that the monstrance represented something sacred and we needed to be reverent, but my heart and mind were not fully connected to this reality. I was doing things out of habit. The good news is that God meets us where we are at. He fully sees our hearts.

As I grew in my faith and more importantly in my relationship with the Lord, I began to ask the Lord if it was indeed Him; I wanted to be sure of it. I do not have an exact date and time but it happened when one day I started to pray as I was on my way to receive Him during communion, the Magnificat. This was not suggested by anyone, but the Holy Spirit, 

The prayer starts like this :

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, 

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior

for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. 

Luke 1:46-55

My soul indeed was praising God, as it recognized that I was about to receive Him and was reminded of who He is for us, for me. Not fully believing that the Eucharist is the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus could be a roadblock to more intentional prayer, and being vulnerable to God. Ask Him to reveal himself to you. 

Busyness:  is another roadblock, perhaps we are too busy to give Jesus an hour of our time, without realizing that that hour of grace will make a difference in the flow of our days. Make time in your schedule to be with Jesus at least once a week to start. It is not about quantity but quality. 

All relationships need effort on our part and to know God, His plan for us, and to fully be transformed and made whole, we need to become Marys and not Marthas. Spending time at the feet of Jesus makes all the difference in our journey to Heaven, after all, we are called to holiness, and Jesus is the only way to the father. If we see Him, we see God. ( John 14:9) 

I hope this could be your invitation from Jesus to grow in friendship with Him. 

How has spending time in Adoration changed your life?