Saint Frances Cabrini Parish

Adoration

Contact Information
Rectory: 724-775-6363

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
is every Friday from 9 am to 10 am.

The Holy Eucharist supplies for what we could never do by ourselves: love others with total self-sacrifice. We must be animated by the light and strength that comes from the heart of Jesus Christ. If, as He said, "without me you can do nothing," it is certainly impossible to give ourselves to others, tirelessly and patiently and continually, in a word, heartily, unless His grace gives us the power to do so.
And where does His grace come from? From the depths of His divine heart, present in the Eucharist, offered daily for us on the altar and available to us always in the sacrament of Communion.
Animated by His help and enlightened by His Word-made-flesh, we shall be able to love the loveless, to give to the ungrateful, to bear up with those whom God's Providence puts into our lives in order to prove to Him how much we love Him. After all, He loved and loves us in spite of our lovelessness and ingratitude and downright coldness to the Lord who made us for Himself and who leads us to our destiny by the path of self-immolation - which is another name for sacrifice. We surrender ourselves to Him as He surrendered Himself for us, and thus make the Eucharist what Christ wants it to be - a union of God's heart with ours as a prelude to His possession of us for all eternity. - John Hardon

One of the hopes of the John Paul the Great was for Adoration of the Eucharist outside of the Mass. The Pope spoke of the Eucharist as the Presence Sacrament, Christ is on earth. Christ wants to perform miracles of His grace, especially miracles of conversion in what is becoming a Christ-less age. Our deep faith in Christ's living presence among us in the Blessed Sacrament becomes a channel of God's grace into the world. It is hoped that all people of faith discover time to adore and love Jesus the Christ in the Holy Eucharist.

The real presence of Christ endures after the celebration of the Eucharistic Liturgy. Following the distribution of Communion the remaining consecrated hosts are placed in the tabernacle. Devotion to the real presence of the Lord in the Eucharist is a hallmark of the Catholic faithful. The hosts in the tabernacle provide "viaticum" (literally food for the journey), Communion for those who turn to the Church in their final hour, and also a focal point for prayer and worship of Christ in his real presence. The tabernacle calls us to find the time to come prayerfully and quietly before Jesus.
The faith of the Church in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is found in the words of Jesus himself, as recorded in the Gospel of Saint John. In the Eucharistic discourse after the multiplication of the loaves, our Lord contrasted ordinary bread with a bread that is not of this world but which contains eternal life for those who eat it. He said: "I am the bread of life… I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats of this bread will live forever and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world" (Jn. 6.48, 51).
With the passage of time, however, reverent reflection led the Church to enrich its Eucharistic devotion. Faith that Jesus is truly present in the sacrament led believers to worship Christ dwelling with us permanently in the sacrament. Wherever the sacrament is, there is Christ who is our Lord and our God. Hence he is ever to be worshiped in this mystery. Such worship is expressed in many ways: in genuflection before the tabernacle, in adoration of the Eucharist and in the many forms of Eucharistic devotion that faith has nourished.
In every church the Eucharistic presence of Christ is found in the tabernacle… The faithful should be encouraged to designate specific times in the course of a week when they might spend some time before the Blessed Sacrament. This could be a time of prayer for many special intentions but particularly for peace among people, an increase in vocations to priesthood and religious life, for the poor and for those with spiritual, physical or other personal needs.
- excerpts from "The Eucharist: Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church: Pastoral Letter to the Clergy, Religious and Lay Faithful of the Diocese of Pittsburgh", Bishop Donald Wuerl

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A Pennsylvania Charitable Trust

115 Trinity Drive
Center Twp., Aliquippa, PA 15001 724-775-6363 Phone
724-775-3848 Fax