VOICES OF NAC

How did Eucharistic Adoration affect your discernment of the priesthood?

In sixth grade I first encountered Our Lord in Eucharistic Adoration. I was in Northern Wisconsin in the middle of nowhere at a faith camp. It was there that I asked for the first time: "Lord, what do you want me to do with my life?" Eucharistic Adoration has played an important role in my life ever since because it is there that the Lord often speaks to me.

I have always felt the world makes a thousand demands on me on a daily basis—the noise and busyness never seem to stop. Yet in Eucharistic Adoration I have experienced something other-worldly. In adoration the whole world stops. All is still. In adoration the Lord takes the burdens of life off my shoulders and gives me the courage to live my life by trusting in him and him alone.

When this world comes to pass, I think we will be astonished at the impact of time spent before the Blessed Sacrament. In my own story, I left seminary and then, slowly discerning if I would enter again, I joined a group of men in college at a weekly hour of adoration followed by a massive Perkins breakfast. At the time it didn’t seem like God was giving me answers to my questions. But looking back, the slow, almost imperceptible movement in discernment came through my face-to-face contact with Jesus in Adoration, perhaps even more than I understand now.

What Eucharistic adoration is to priesthood, friendship is to life. When I try to go without it, I am robbed of my relational living and, as a result, my joy. It is in his presence that Jesus reminds me, “Ben, Ben, I want you to be my fisher-of-men.” His silent, life-giving presence moves me to realize it is good that I exist and this enables me to take the next step toward him who alone makes my life meaningful.