Adoration

 Catholics have their own terminology similar to Evangelical speak, only it is Catholic.  The difference is, I knew all of the Evangelical buzz lines, "Once saved, always saved," "Born Again," "Word from the Lord," ect, the Catholic buzz was completely new.

When I found myself in Mass Sunday after Sunday, I began to realize the strange reality that there is indeed, another culture of Christianity, claiming the same Savior as I held to, but with a completely different set of definitions.  It was, and continues to be, a learning curve, and a confusing process.  On the one hand I am falling in love with the culture, on the other, I am disturbed to the core how vastly different Christianity can be from Church to Church.  How are we claiming the same Lord yet not at all speaking the same language.  If God is all Truth, how can that Truth be so varied?

This was pushed to the forefront as I would hear the Priest continually praise the practice of "Adoration."  Not knowing what it was, or where this specific prayer discipline took place, or what one should "do" while "adoring" was enough to make me avoid at all costs.  Avoid, that is, until I saw it's fruit; in my husband. 

He is much bolder in newer things than I have ever been.  Much because he has to, meeting new people for work, for cases, and for uncomfortable smoozing conferences.  Even so, I was slightly shocked when he told me he had, every once in a while, stopped by Adoration before work, to pray.  And because of his prayer life, I have noticed a change in him.  He seems to have had encounters with the Peace that passes all Understanding, even though our world is busy, stressful, and full of good and bad.  He prays for me, for our kids, for our families.  He prays forgiveness for sins, has admitted when he is convicted, and has turned from those things.  It is an amazing thing to have a husband who prays.  On his knees, in front of the Lord. 

Adoration, to the Catholic, is time set aside for praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament.  The consecrated hosts left over from the recent Mass are placed within a small tabernacle in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel (a small chapel usually located away from the larger Church).  Because the Catholic believes in the Real Presence of the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ in the bread, he therefore prays in the Presence of the Lord when he prays in front of the Tabernacle. 

As a Protestant, I thought it was crazy.  I could get on my knees by my couch and pray.  And I still do.  But, after I found myself without kids one random morning.. I could not escape the quiet calling of the Lord to come to him, there, in Adoration.  So I drove to Church, nervous as all get out, and unsure of how to act.  There are cradle Catholics there, and I was not wanting to stick out like a sore convert thumb. 

Yet when I went in, got on my knees, and just prayed, in the silence of the room, in the beauty of the stained glass, and in the Presence of the Lord, I began to believe that Adoration was true.  Nothing earth shattering happened.  I remained on earth and I did not hear the Lord speaking as though a Man next to me.  But I had Peace.  I had peace for my day, for my kids, for my marriage, and for my faith.  I walked out the same woman who had gone in, but quietly filled with peace. 

The true sense to me that the Lord was present there in that chapel was my longing to go the next day.  It was as if He was whispering from the Chapel as I drove past.  Come, come to me and talk to me.  I love you, please come.   He was calling, and I went.  I prayed, I spent time looking at the Tabernacle, and time in awe of the other dedicated Catholics who, although varied in their stages of life and I'm sure backgrounds, were there to honor the Lord as I was. 

I long to go back, and I know that if our journey ends in the Church, Adoration will become a practice for my life.  I urge you that He is there.  He is speaking, and He wants you to meet him there.  He will meet you on your couch too... but his presence, as Moses found, is more radiant the closer you are to his body.  And his body is there, maybe we should spend more time adoring it. 


PS. Matt Maher has a song "Adoration" taken greatly from Thomas Aquinas's Hymn Adoro te devote, "I Adore Thee"... It is a great one to listen to on the way to pray.