Robert Barron - The Power of Eucharistic Adoration
Peace be with you. Friends, we come to this great feast of Corpus Christi. So every year, right at the end of the whole Easter season, just before we turn back to ordinary time, we celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi. And of course, this year, as the church in the US is going through a lengthy Eucharistic Revival, it’s good for us once again to turn to this greatest of sacraments. We’ve looked at the Eucharist from all kinds of different angles. What I want to do today is to talk about something which has become very dear to me in the course of my life. And that is Eucharistic adoration.
To be honest with you, when I was a young man, I mean, even my seminary years, we were kind of discouraged from doing Eucharistic adoration because we thought it detracted from the Mass. It was a static presence, not an active presence, all that. And I just come to realize that’s so much nonsense, all of that. One of the great prophets I think of adoration and of the Holy Hour was the great Fulton Sheen. And just as I record these words just a few weeks ago, I was up at Saint Paul Seminary, where a lot of my seminarians from Winona-Rochester go. And I gave a day of reflection to the faculty and students. And when I was there in the chapel, I started talking about Eucharistic adoration. And one of the teachers reminded me afterwards, «Well, Sheen attended this seminary and would’ve prayed in this chapel. In fact, learned the discipline of the Holy Hour when he was there».
And that really moved me. And I said to the students, then I think it was after lunch, I said, «This should be just a real focus of your spiritual attention, that Fulton Sheen himself learned this great art and task when he was a student there». So I mean, what’s it all about? I go back to my spiritual hero, Thomas Aquinas, who beautifully, and this image has stayed in my mind ever since I read it, he said, «At the words of consecration, it’s as though a fire is kindled in a new place». So it’s the same Christ, the same fire if you want, all over the world, but he can be kindled in a new place. I thought of this when I moved into my house in Rochester. I’d just been appointed Bishop and I moved into my house and the moving boxes were still all around. But as soon as I could, I went to the chapel. We had designated a room as the chapel, had an altar set up there.
As soon as I could, I got out the books for Mass and everything. And I said the Mass and consecrated the Eucharist and consecrated a host to put in the picks in the tabernacle. I did vivid sense of kindling a fire, kindling a fire. And it’s before that fire, this morning I was there doing my Holy Hour, adoration everybody, is staying close to the fire. I think a fire that gives light against the darkness, it gives heat against the cold. It provides protection against enemies. But we live in kind of a cold world. I mean, this coldly, secularistic world that we’re in. I know a lot of young people celebrate it, God knoweth why. But the secular world for the soul is a cold and dreary place because the soul is wired for God. The soul is ordered to God.
What’s the Eucharist as we come to the tabernacle to adore, but it’s warmth against that cold. It’s light against the darkness. I mean, we live in a fallen world. We know that. And the fallen world is a dark place. Darkness is a great biblical symbol for losing the way, not knowing where I’m going, stumbling about. That’s the way a lot of us live, even stars and celebrities and all this. But they’re lost spiritually these people. They’re stumbling about. What’s the Eucharist? But it’s light against the darkness. The fallen world is also a place that’s filled with enemies. We know that. You could go on a camping trip in the beautiful woods and all that, and you take in the loveliness of the day, but at night you got to be aware of the fact that those woods are also full of predators, of dangers. And fire from primordial times was a way of keeping those at bay.
Do we live in a world with lots of visible enemies? You bet. Look around. The way the church is often beleaguered today, the way the faith is under attack. I mean, just go on any time of the day or night on the internet and see the faith being attacked. Do we also have invisible enemies? You bet. We struggle not just against flesh and blood, but powers and principalities. Okay, what keeps the predators at bay? But the fire. What’s Eucharistic adoration? It seems to me everybody, it’s a conscious act of staying close to the fire. Spiritual warmth, spiritual light, spiritual protection comes from there. An image from Fulton Sheen again, because he wrote a lot about the Holy hour, which was so central to his spirituality. He said, «I feel like I’m a dog at the feet of his master. And the master might not need me right now. The master is doing his own thing or he’s whatever, but I’m here. I’m here. And if he needs me, I’m ready to move».
And I might just be, think of a dog just lying in his master’s feet, not doing very much, but he’s ready. He’s there. So someone who is sitting or kneeling in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, maybe not doing a lot, not actively engaged in the life of the church, but ready at his master’s feet, ready to respond when he’s needed. I like that. Don’t you love too? This been, it’s been attributed to a lot of different people. What happens in Eucharistic adoration? I look at him, he looks at me. It’s the way two friends can be with each others in silence. I mean, not really doing anything. What’d you guys do? Well, I mean, we didn’t really accomplish very much, but we were with each other. We were in each other’s presence.
Something of that, I think in Eucharistic adoration, spending time with the Lord. So many of the saints were devoted to the Eucharist in just this way. And I find a lot of edification from this. Don’t believe people, by the way, who say, and you’ll still hear it today, that there’s something primitive about Eucharistic adoration, something immature. Forget that. Some of the greatest figures in our tradition were devoted to it.
Aquinas again, his secretary, Reginald Piperno, he was with him for many years, knew him very well. He said Aquinas solved far more intellectual problems through prayer than he did through thought. And he was one of the great thinkers in the Western tradition. But his secretary thought he solved most of his problems, not by thinking it through so much as praying. He testified that Thomas would often go into the chapel and he would even rest his head against the tabernacle as though seeking direct inspiration. That’s Aquinas.
Another hero of mine, Saint John Henry Newman, was very devoted to the Eucharistic presence. Writes a series of prayers, you can still get them, born of his devotion to the blessed Sacrament. They’re marvelous. Still worth praying. One of my favorite stories here regards Edith Stein, the great 20th century martyr. Edith Stein was from a Jewish family, brought up in the Jewish faith. But by the time she was in her late teens or early 20s, she’d become an atheist, rejected her religious tradition completely. But then through a lengthy and fascinating process, she kind of reads herself back into the faith and then into Catholicism. And before she was a consecrated religious, so she was a lay woman now on fire with the Lord and trying to find her path.
She would spend hour upon hour in front of the Blessed sacrament in Eucharistic adoration. She was staying for a time when she was still a lay person in a convent. And the nuns there were so impressed by her devotion that they created a little chair for her and it was behind a pillar so the people in the church wouldn’t be kind of gawking at her. It’s like her own special place where she would give herself over to Eucharistic adoration. What gave her, by the way, the strength of character and soul to become the great martyr she was. I’m convinced those hours and hours spent before the blessed Sacrament, Edith Stein.
Jacq Maritain, one of the greatest Catholic intellectuals of the last century. Read his life story, fascinating. Read his books, marvelous, marvelous. Catholic philosopher, cultural commentator, political commentator, et cetera. Maritain, when he was in Paris. So he traveled the world, but he was based in Paris. He’d come home and his custom was intellectuals the end of the day, he’d make his way through Paris to Montmartre, which is the area of the city where the church of Sacré Coeur is found of the Sacred Heart. And Maritain would go into that church. He’d kneel before the Blessed Sacrament, and he spent the whole night in vigil, the whole night in adoration.
By the way, at Sacré Coeur, the Eucharist has been adored nonstop, nonstop 24 hours a day since the late 19th century. And Maritain was one of the people who continued that great chain of devotion. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, when I was there in Calcutta at her mother house. We were filming there years ago. You go into this very simple space with the Blessed Sacrament. And at first it looks like one of the nuns praying because they created this little statue in the posture and attitude of Mother Teresa. She’s kind of crouched down and kind of hunched over. I think she has a rosary in her hand, but it’s exactly where she sat in prayer in adoration for hour upon hour. What informed her work with the poor? What made it possible was Eucharistic adoration. That’s where her strength came from.
I love the story about Dorothy Day, another hero of mine, the founderess of the Catholic Worker Movement. Dorothy Day had a deep devotion to the Eucharistic Blessed Sacrament. A priest came to the Catholic Worker house in New York to say Mass. And it was the late 60s, and it was kind of time of experimentation. And he thought he was being very hip. And so he took a coffee mug from the shelf and used that for the chalice. Well, he celebrated Mass and Dorothy Day, very reverently, follow the Mass and receive the Eucharist. Thanked the priest, sent him on his way. And then she purified that coffee mug. But then she put it in a towel and took a hammer and broke it up into pieces, and then went out in the backyard.
And then she buried it deep in the ground. And her friends were like, «What are you doing»? And she said, «How could I ever use this as a coffee mug that held the blood of Christ»? And that’s where her power in caring for the poor came from. I’ll give you one more story about the great Karol Wojtyła, John Pauł II. And I got this from a witness. Sister Theodosia was one of the wonderful Polish sisters who helped Cardinal George. In the years I lived there, I came to know these nuns well. And Theodosia was in her mother house in Cracow. And Karol Wojtyła, when he was Archbishop, loved to come there to pray. So she saw him come into the chapel and then she was doing her work and so on. And then she never saw him come out.
And so she went in and she looked around, didn’t see him, came out, asked around, came back, looked around, didn’t see him, and she thought, «What happened to him»? Well, finally the third time, she goes back in the chapel, she sees Karol Wojtyła spread eagle on the ground, adoring the Blessed Sacrament. Don’t tell me that somehow Eucharistic adoration is a primitive form of spiritual practice. Forget it. Forget that. Some of the greatest saints, listen, have stayed close to that fire. Holding off the cold, holding off the darkness, holding off the dangers. On this Feast of Corpus Christi, can I warmly recommend to everybody Eucharistic Adoration? And God bless you.