Some of us, maybe, are deterred from visiting our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament by a false conception of what a visit should be. We suppose that the occupations which fill our heads and our hands from morning till night must all be laid aside at the church door and sternly forbidden entrance, much in the same way as we bid our dog lie down in the porch and wait for us.
There will be no more visitors for Me today, none through the long hours of the night. Stay with Me because it is towards evening.
“Can you come after Me by taking up your cross daily— the cross I have laid upon you to liken you to Myself?”
Do this for me, O dearest Lord. Praise does not come easily to these lips of mine. The cares of life, and its failures, and its pains; heaviness of soul, and the weight of the corruptible body, with all the engrossingness of self, wring my heart dry of praise.
He wants our intercourse with Him to be perfectly free; nothing studied, nothing strained. He desires to have us as we are, no less than as we would be.
The custom of honouring the Eucharistic presence of Christ our Lord by paying “Visits” to the Blessed Sacrament may be quoted as one of the most conspicuous examples of development in the devotional practice of the Catholic Church.
As you make preparations for Lent, perhaps you plan to carve out some time for Eucharistic Adoration. If so, we invite you to join us in reading a wonderful book by Mother Mary Loyola.
We can use this year’s eclipse to assist us in (re-)introducing the experience of Eucharistic Exposition and Adoration to the faithful.
