Adoration: a spiritual antidote

Like the rich and the poor, the ‘givers’ and the ‘takers’ are always with us. The takers are easy to identify. They are the consumers, the materialists, the greedy and the selfish. We don’t want to be like them, but the society in which we live subtly, and sometimes blatantly cause us to conform to its egocentric culture. None of us are immune to the temptations of selfishness. It creeps into our spirituality, when the goal of our religious lives becomes satisfying our own – felt needs, or when we focus on seeking the god within rather than the God and neighbour beyond us.

At the same time there are the givers. We know God loves a cheerful giver and we want to be givers, but daily we are exhausted by what the world – work, family, school, sport – requires of us. On top of this, the Church is always asking us to make self-sacrifices in the service of God and neighbour. Where will we get the energy we need for this constant giving?

In the midst of our consumer culture, we are confronted with the character of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. Even before her death, the world recognised in her the saintliness of a true ‘giver’ – a person who selflessly spent her life serving ‘the poorest of the poor.’ Far from showing the world an ideal of Christian charity, she showed us what we are all, in truth, called to be: givers energised by the Gift of the Holy Spirit. She knew the secret of receiving without taking, so that she could give without reserve.

She shared her secret with all who asked her, saying: “It was not until 1973, when we began our daily Holy Hour that our community started to grow and blossom...

“In our congregation, we used to have adoration once a week for one hour, and then in 1973, we decided to have adoration one hour every day. We have much work to do. Our homes for the sick and dying destitute are full everywhere. And from the time we started having adoration every day, our love for Jesus became more intimate, our love for each other more understanding, our love for the poor more compassionate, and we have double the number of vocations. God has blessed us with many wonderful vocations. The time we spend in having our daily audience with God is the most precious part of the whole day.”

The uniquely Catholic devotion of Eucharistic adoration is the perfect spiritual antidote to the culture of our age. When every other medium bombards us with the message ‘Look to yourself,’ Eucharistic adoration says: ‘Look beyond yourself. Fix your eyes on Christ!’

Adoration takes us outside of ourselves. It reminds us that God is not principally ‘God within us,’ but ‘God beyond us.’ According to the Christian gospel, God spanned this great and mysterious ‘beyond-ness’ by coming to us in His Word made flesh. This Word made flesh is present in the Eucharistic host, and it is upon him that we fix our adoring gaze.

Those who fix their gaze on Christ in the blessed Eucharist cannot at the same time gaze at their own navels. Those who look up to Christ in the Eucharist will also be able to look up and see their neighbour in need. Moreover, as this devotion to the Eucharist leads both to and from the celebration of the Holy Mass, it gives the grace and the strength to live as sacrificial givers rather than as selfish takers.

This is, in part, is why our churches are traditionally designed with all the people facing together in the same direction toward the altar and tabernacle. It is a reminder that we are not gathered before a mirror to look at ourselves, but that we are all focused on what is beyond us. The altar and tabernacle are true Eucharistic focal points for the people of God. Towards these, Christ our high priest draws us out of ourselves and into the world about us.

If you are seeking help to overcome selfishness, be encouraged by Saint Alphonsus Liguori, who wrote: “Of all devotions, that of adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the greatest after the sacraments, the one dearest to God and the one most helpful to us."

If you are seeking strength to give with all your soul and not grow weary, be reminded by Mother Teresa that “our lives must be woven around the Eucharist... Fix your eyes on him who is the light; bring your hearts closeto his Divine Heart; ask him to grant you the grace of knowing him, the love of loving him, the courage to serve him.”

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.