Eucharistic Adoration - Leatherette Edition

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Eucharistic Adoration

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All booklets are published thanks to the generous support of the members of the Catholic Truth Society

 

Eucharistic Adoration Prayers, Meditations and Devotions

CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY PUBLISHERS TO THE HOLY SEE

   

All rights reserved. Published 2004 by the Incorporated Catholic Truth Society, 40-46 Harleyford Road, London SE11 5AY. Tel: 020 7640 0042 Fax 020 7640 0046 website: www.CTSbooks.org Copyright © 2004, first published 2004 by The Incorporated Catholic Truth Society. This revised edition, published 2012 by The Incorporated Catholic Truth Society, all rights reserved.

ISBN 978 1 86082 825 6 CTS gratefully acknowledges the editorial contributions of Fr Peter Edwards, Fr Richard Rutt, Mr Adrian Thacker and Mr Barry Midgely towards this volume.

CTS gratefully acknowledges use of Holy Communion and Worship of the Eucharist Outside Mass (The Roman Ritual) Vol. 1 Rites, Vol. II Biblical Readings.

Approved by the Bishops’ Conferences of England & Wales, Ireland and Scotland, and Confirmed by Decrees of the Sacred Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship 29th May 1976. Page 10: Communion of the Apostles, 1451-53 (tempera on panel), Angelico, Fra (Guido di Pietro) (c.1387-1455)/Museo di San Marco dell’Angelico, Florence, Italy, Giraudon/Bridgeman Art Library/www.bridgeman.co.uk. Page 24: Christ Blessing Bread, Dolci, Carlo (161686)/Burghley House Collection, Lincolnshire, UK/www.bridgeman.co.uk. Page 38: The Institution of the Eucharist, c.1490 (tempera on panel), Roberti, Ercole de (c.1453-96) (attr. to)/National Gallery, London, UK/www.bridgeman.co.uk. Page 56: The Eucharist (oil on panel), Kessel, Jan van, the Elder (1626-79)/Private Collection, CREDIT: Rafael Valls Gallery, London, UK/ www.bridgeman.co.uk.

Page 60: The Virgin with the Host, Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique (17801867)/Pushkin Museum, Moscow, Russia, www.bridgeman.co.uk.

For those quotations for which we have been unable to trace the copyright holder, the Publisher would be grateful to receive any information as to their identity.

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CONTENTS PRAYING BEFORE THE BLESSED SACRAMENT .............................9 The Year of the Eucharist .................................................11 THE WORD OF GOD ...................................................................15 1. God will provide - John 6:26-35 ......................................16 2. The Eucharist: Refreshment and Strength - Ps 147 12-20...................................................................17 3. The Eucharist: Sacrament of Unity - 1 Cor 10:16-17 ...............................................................18 4. The Eucharist: Source and Summit of Christian Life - Lk 24: 13-35...................................................................18 5. The Eucharist: Foretaste of heavenly glory - Rev 3:20-21....................................................................20 6. The Eucharist: Redemption and Purification - Heb 9:11-15....................................................................21 7. The Institution of the Eucharist - 1 Cor 11: 23-26 ...........22 MEDITATIONS ............................................................................23 The new life .........................................................................23 Food from heaven ................................................................23 United to the Father .............................................................25 Lord, help us ........................................................................25 Our food and drink ...............................................................25 Anima Christi .......................................................................26 Forever at your service.........................................................27 PRAYERS AND LITANIES.............................................................28 Prayer before the Blessed Sacrament ..................................28 Act of Adoration ..................................................................28 Act of Offering.....................................................................29

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EUCHARISTIC ADORATION Prayer for Life ......................................................................29 Prayer for Peace ...................................................................30 Prayer in Sickness and Pain .................................................30 Prayer for Chastity ...............................................................31 Prayer in Thanksgiving ........................................................31 For the Faithful Departed .....................................................31 Against Temptation..............................................................33 The Jesus Prayer ..................................................................33 We Bless You ......................................................................33 You are the Bread ................................................................34 The Divine Praises ...............................................................34 Litany of humility ................................................................35 Into your care .......................................................................36 Where shall we find you?.....................................................36

PRAYING WITH THE SAINTS .......................................................39 St Alphonsus Liguori ...........................................................39 St Anselm .............................................................................40 St Augustine of Hippo .........................................................40 St Benedict ...........................................................................41 St Bernardette Soubirous .....................................................41 St Catherine Labouré ...........................................................41 St Catherine of Siena ...........................................................42 St Clare of Assisi .................................................................42 St Francis of Assisi ..............................................................42 St Gemma Galgani ...............................................................43 St Ignatius Loyola ...............................................................43 Blessed John XXIII .............................................................44 St John Bosco ......................................................................44 Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman ...............................45 St John Vianney ...................................................................45

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CONTENTS

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St Katharine Drexel .............................................................46 St Mary Magdalen de Pazzi .................................................47 St Margaret Mary Alacoque.................................................47 Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta ...................................48 St Richard of Chichester ......................................................49 St Teresa of Avila ................................................................49 St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, (Edith Stein) ..................50 St Thérèse of Lisieux ...........................................................50 St Thomas More ..................................................................51 RITE OF EUCHARISTIC EXPOSITION AND BENEDICTION ...........53 Exposition ............................................................................53 Adoration .............................................................................54 Benediction ..........................................................................54 Reposition ............................................................................57 ROSARY MEDITATIONS BEFORE THE BLESSED SACRAMENT ...59 The Prayers of the Rosary ....................................................61 THE JOYFUL MYSTERIES ..........................................................63 THE LUMINOUS MYSTERIES ......................................................68 THE SORROWFUL MYSTERIES ..................................................73 THE GLORIOUS MYSTERIES ......................................................78 WHAT WE BELIEVE ...................................................................83 The Catechism of the Catholic Church ................................83 The Second Vatican Council................................................84 John Paul II: Ecclesia de Eucharistia ...................................85

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HYMNS AND POEMS ...................................................................88 Be Still .................................................................................88 Sweet Sacrament Divine ......................................................89 Bless the Lord ......................................................................90 Come back to me .................................................................90 Majesty ................................................................................91 I need thee every hour ..........................................................91 Soul of my Saviour...............................................................92 Love......................................................................................93 Further reading .....................................................................94

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PRAYING BEFORE  - THE BLESSED SACRAMENT 

Could you not watch with me one hour? (Matt 26:40) Jesus asked his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane to watch one hour with him. Eucharistic Adoration is an opportunity to respond to Jesus’ request. The devotion of the ‘holy hour’ before the Blessed Sacrament has through the centuries been a privileged time for Christians to pray and meditate in the very presence of our Lord. Even if we are unable to find one whole hour, we can still devote what is today called ‘quality time’ to our relationship with Jesus.

There is no set formula for Eucharistic Adoration. An act of Adoration (e.g. page 28) is a good way of acknowledging that we are in the presence of God himself.

Then, like at Mass, we can say sorry for the sins which have disrupted our relationship with God and neighbour.

During prayer, our minds often become distracted, perhaps we even feel bored. If so, it is helpful to divide the time into reading scripture (pages 15-22), meditation (pages 23-27) and prayer (e.g. the Rosary pages 59-82).

Above all, remember that “the Spirit too comes to our help in our weakness, for, when we do not know how to pray properly, then the Spirit personally makes our petitions for us in sighs that cannot be put into words.” (Rom 8:26)

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THE YEAR OF THE EUCHARIST 

During the Mass of Corpus Christi 2004, Blessed Pope John Paul II announced a special Year of the Eucharist which began in October 2004. The Eucharist as ‘source and summit of Christian life’ always played an important part in the teaching ministry of John Paul II. In 2003 he issued an Encyclical entitled Ecclesia de Eucharistia (The Church comes from the Eucharist) in which he shows how the Eucharist really does build the Church.

The following is a summary of the main points of this important encyclical.

The Eucharist - sharing Christ’s one sacrifice The sacrifice offered by Christ in his death and resurrection was so decisive for the salvation of the human race that Jesus returned to the Father only after he had left us a means of sharing in it. He gave us the Mass as its memorial celebration, which makes Christ’s one, definitive redemptive sacrifice always present in time.

The Real Presence of Jesus This sacrificial presence within the Eucharist is crowned by the reality of his personal presence. Christ is really present in other ways too - in prayer and in the other sacraments - yet in the Eucharist he comes as God and Man, wholly and entirely present. After the consecration

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the bread and wine cease to exist, so that the adorable body and blood of the Lord Jesus from that moment on are really before us under the sacramental species of bread and wine.

Because the living Jesus is present in this way, the gift of his body and blood increases within us the gift of his Spirit, already poured out in Baptism and bestowed as a ‘seal’ in the sacrament of Confirmation. By the Eucharist, Christ continually transforms us into his own divine likeness through the Holy Spirit.

The Eucharist is also the pledge of the future Resurrection, because the flesh of the Son of Man, given as Eucharistic food, is his body in its glorious state after the Resurrection. Receiving his flesh and blood means sharing both in his Resurrection and in the Holy Spirit who is the foretaste and pledge of our own Resurrection.

The Eucharist is participation in the heavenly liturgy of Mary and all the Saints and angels, a true glimpse of heaven appearing on earth. It is a glorious ray of the heavenly Jerusalem piercing the clouds of history and lightening our earthly journey.

The Eucharist builds the Church We are united with him not only as individuals but in his body the Church. The Eucharist both fully expresses our union as Christ’s Church both fostering and promoting the growth of the Church on earth.

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THE YEAR

OF THE

EUCHARIST

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This is why sharing in the Sunday liturgy is so essential to the Christian life. In the Eucharist we not only share in the Lord’s passion and death we also partake of his risen body and blood. Thus we become what we truly are: the body of Christ.

This awesome reality of his presence in the Eucharist requires that we continue Eucharistic adoration outside the Mass, in exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and in prayer of adoration before the tabernacle.

Precisely because of the communal nature of the Eucharist, those not in full communion with the Church are not, except in certain extraordinary circumstances, to receive communion within a Catholic liturgy; nor are Catholics permitted to receive communion within liturgies whose ministers are not validly ordained.

Similarly, because grave sin separates a person from the living Christ and his body the Church, such a person must first receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation before coming again to communion.

Mary, Woman of the Eucharist Mary, perfect image of the Church, is the model of the Christian’s relationship to the Eucharist. At the Annunciation she conceived the Son of God in the physical reality of his body and blood, thus anticipating within herself what to some degree happens sacramentally in every believer who receives, under the signs of bread

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and wine, the Lord’s body and blood. Mary became the first ‘tabernacle’ in history where the Son of God dwelt as man. She also stood beneath the cross and joined herself to her son’s loving sacrifice. For Mary, receiving the Eucharist must have meant welcoming once more into her womb that heart which had beat in unison with hers, reliving what she had experienced at the foot of the cross.

All members of the Church, like her, welcome the Eucharistic Jesus into their bodies and souls and in so doing join themselves to the crucified Jesus for the salvation of the world. Finally, as Mary fully shared in her son’s Resurrection through her Assumption into heaven, so those who receive the risen Lord Jesus in the Eucharist share fully in the heavenly liturgy. There, Mary and all the Saints and angels will sing in the Spirit of the splendour of Jesus to the glory of God the Father. ‘The Eucharist has been given to us that our life, like that of Mary, may become completely a Magnificat!’

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THE WORD OF GOD 

The Table of Word and the Table of the Sacrament are intimately connected. The Holy Scriptures proclaim Christ and the salvation he offers. They present an intimate account of how Jesus ate and drank with his disciples before his Passion.

But the institution of the Eucharist did not take place in a vacuum. The context of the Last Supper was the Passover, a ritual meal in which the Jews celebrate their liberation from slavery in Egypt as recounted in the book of Exodus. The first Christians who feasted upon the Risen Christ at the breaking of bread understood that Jesus had become their Passover. This is why we can say, “Every Mass is a mini-Easter.” In many parts of the Bible, the imagery used to describe salvation is rich in allusions to feasting. The promised kingdom would be full of the finest wheat, and new wine.

It is fitting that we should meditate upon the Word of God in Old and New Testaments, for the Word of God points towards and indeed makes present the very reality it signifies.

When your words came I devoured them: your word was my delight and the joy of my heart; for I was called by your name, Lord God of Sabaoth. (Jer 15:16)

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SEVEN THEMES FOR ADORATION 1. God will provide - John 6:26-35 Jesus answered: ‘I tell you most solemnly, you are not looking for me because you have seen the signs but because you had all the bread you wanted to eat. Do not work for food that cannot last, but work for food that endures to eternal life, the kind of food the Son of Man is offering you, for on him the Father, God himself, has set his seal.’

Then they said to him, ‘What must we do if we are to do the works that God wants?’ Jesus gave them this answer, ‘This is working for God: you must believe in the one he has sent’. So they said, ‘What sign will you give to show us that we should believe in you? What work will you do? Our fathers had manna to eat in the desert; as scripture says: He gave them bread from heaven to eat’.

Jesus answered: ‘I tell you most solemnly, it was not Moses who gave you bread from heaven, it is my Father who gives you the bread from heaven, the true bread; for the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world’.

‘Sir,’ they said ‘give us that bread always.’ Jesus answered: ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never be hungry; he who believes in me will never thirst.