Eucharistic Adoration turns our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh…….How does that happen?….. ”Adoration is like radiation”

Today at Holy Mass we hear from the gospel of St Mark….Jesus just fed 5000 people with crumbs of bread and a few fish and afterward he went to pray alone…His 12 friends, St Mark tells us did not understand what Jesus did……”They had not understood the incident of the loaves. On the contrary, their hearts were hardened”……Let’s put this into prospective…These were the 12 “handpicked” men who were to bring our Catholic faith to the entire world…And at this time “they did not get it”…..Notice, Jesus did not give up on these men…..“Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid!”……Jesus was patient with them as he is patient with us, therefore we should be patient with ourselves…..”Rome was not built in a day”…..However, once we acknowledge that we are all a work in progress and we all are, we must “get to work”!…..Like the first 12 apostles, it takes time for our “hearts of stone” to turn into “hearts of flesh”…..It’s completely up to us for that process to move forward - We have to give God permission to enter our lives….God will never force himself upon us….Caryll Houselander was a British artist, poet and writer…This is how she put it….”Our souls are like the inn Jesus was born in: crowded, noisy, restless. We shrink from the silence that must fall upon our souls if they are to cradle the Child”…….Do we carve out time to sit in silence before the Blessed Sacrament each week?…Once again, notice what Jesus did after he fed 5000 thousand people……..”After the five thousand had eaten and were satisfied, Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and precede him to the other side toward Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. And when he had taken leave of them, he went off to the mountain to pray”….We were ALL made for God - God is in our DNA and because we were ALL made by God to live for God, we are also made for prayer…..Our days are comprised of many things, so here is the question - Do we prioritize daily prayer?….Why do you think the first 12 apostles after Jesus just performed an amazing miracle right in front of their eyes “did not get it”……Caryll Houselander once again gives us a window into the issue at hand….”We profess Christianity but are almost shocked by it in practice, so complacently have we accepted a unity religion of materialism, security and good health. We want Christ on our terms, Christ gives himself only on his terms.”……Our hearts of stone, must be transformed into hearts of flesh.

“About the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them walking on the sea”

Practice makes prefect…We all have heard that phrase before in our life….As Catholics none of us are perfect, that is why we must practice our faith each and every day….And that requires daily prayer…..At the height of her fame Mother Teresa was asked by the press..”What is your secret?”…Her answer was so simple and direct…..”My secret is I pray”……So again the question remains - Do we pray everyday?…….I have a friend who is a very holy priest…Fr Justin is a Carmelite in New York and he said to me something about Eucharistic Adoration that I will never forget…”Joe - Adoration is like radiation”…If a person has cancer, they are given chemotherapy to shrink the cancer cells within their body…This medical process is similar to praying before the Blessed Sacrament in silence…Please allow me to explain - Jesus during that silent time radiates his love upon us and if we make this a weekly practice….Our hearts will change…Our sins with “shrink” like the cancer cells do under chemotherapy…..Why do we not pray everyday as Catholics?…..I will be blunt, as I always am….We don’t think we need too!…..Big mistake!……Everything we do as Catholics comes from God and our interior life....…And if we are not “plugged in”…As Scripture tells us…”You can do nothing” that will last….At the AIDS hospice in Lower Manhattan run by Mother Teresa’s sisters not all the men there are Catholic never mind even baptized, which means they do not receive Jesus in the Holy Eucharist at daily Mass…However, everyday the sisters have a Eucharistic Holy Hour, which means that the Blessed Sacrament is exposed for one hour of silent prayer…All the men staying in the house were required to sit before the Blessed Sacrament for that one hour each day…Now keep this in mind, these guys were not exactly “choir boys”…They acquired AIDS by every means one can imagine: intravenous drug use, some were in jail, some were living in the streets, etc…However, as they made it a practice to sit before Jesus for one hour a day, they began to change…I have watched miracles unfold before my eyes…..Hardened men request over time to get baptized….Their behavior patterns even changed…Not all of them, but definitely some of them…Why?…Because Jesus speaks to us in the silence “a language” that only we understand…No person can “change our hearts” - Only Jesus knows where we hurt, where the wounds are…And like chemotherapy, making it a practice to sit before the Blessed Sacrament shrinks our “issues” that keep us from God.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love.

Today at Mass, St Mark tells us that Jesus’s 12 friends once again “did not get it”….Yet Jesus did not give up one them - Nor does he give up on us!….However, we have to help ourself…Daily prayer is vital to the life of a Catholic…We need to “plug in” to the Holy Spirit each and everyday….If we do that, I promise you, you will see a big change in the way you view the world and also in your own behavior…..Prayer transforms us and in turn we transform the world around us - That is how it works and that is the goal…Everything we do as Catholics comes from our interior life…..We can not give to others what we do not have…….And daily prayer is one of the many “tools” our Church gives to us…As my friend Fr Justin told me and I am sharing what he said with you in this reflection…… ”Adoration is like radiation”…The first 12 apostles did not understand the meaning of the miracle of Jesus feeding 5000 thousand people because “their hearts were hardened”……Eucharistic Adoration turns our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh…….How does that happen?….. ”Adoration is like radiation”