Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration

Dear Friends,

I have been spending an hour before the Blessed Sacrament every day since I entered seminary in 1987. On days I cannot do a Eucharistic holy hour (for example, when I am backpacking in the mountains or on a trip with no access to a chapel), I keep an hour of silence and make a spiritual communion, calling to mind God’s presence in all the tabernacles of the world, especially that one in my own parish. These daily holy hours have saved my priesthood. When things are hard, I go into the chapel a broken man; I leave an hour later a new man, full of health and vigor. I have seen impossibly broken marriages restored, people brought back from the edge of suicide, and desperate men given hope, through the practice of the Eucharistic Holy Hour.

If you are in good health, and not desperate, “sunning yourself” before Christ in the Blessed Sacrament will make you incomparably stronger and more joyful. As the newly-canonized St. Carlo Acutis said, “if you face the sun you become tan, and if you face the Eucharist you become a saint.” That was how he became a saint, attending Mass and spending time before the Blessed Sacrament every day from the time he made his First Holy Communion in Milan at age seven. “The Eucharist is my highway to heaven” he would say, and indeed it was.

Do you want to go to heaven, fast, without time in Purgatory? Do you want peace and joy during your earthly pilgrimage now? Then make the effort–commit an hour a week–to Eucharistic adoration. In the two parishes in which I have pastored, it has been perpetual Eucharistic adoration that has grown each parish far beyond my own capacities: Mass attendance doubled, weekly income tripled, young people coming to the sacraments in droves, strong marriages, consecrated vocations, and men entering the seminary, folks feeding the poor, building medical clinics in Africa and missions in Soviet Russia, etc.

Every good thing comes from prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, but you have to show up. Jesus waits for you in our chapel, but you have to get there, and stay there. It’s not easy to pray, if you don’t know how, wrote Mother Teresa. “You will pray better if you pray more.” The best way to pray, after the Holy Mass itself, is quiet time with the Blessed Sacrament. In this parish, we are able to keep our chapel open nonstop, with Jesus on the altar, because at least one person commits to an hour in the chapel every hour of the week. Think about it, pray about it, and then click this link to get on the weekly schedule of Eucharistic adoration. Try it for three months, and then tell me if you are not blessed, receiving far more than you give. God will not be outdone in generosity.

God bless you.

Fr. Joseph Illo, Pastor

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He Stopped for the Lord

St. John Paul II was known for his deep love of the Eucharist and for the long hours he spent in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. Those who worked with him often testified that no schedule was more important than time spent before the Lord. It is often recounted that during one of his visits, the Blessed Sacrament had been exposed in a chapel along his route. Concerned about the already full program, organizers deliberately kept the chapel door closed and did not mention it to him. Yet as he walked past — in a building he had never seen before — he suddenly stopped. Turning back, he gently wagged his finger at the organizer, as if to say he knew exactly what had been done, and opened the very door that led to the chapel. There he entered and knelt in silent adoration before continuing with the day’s events.

This story reflects a truth seen throughout his life: nothing was more important than time spent before the living Christ. For St. John Paul II, prayer before the Eucharist was not a distraction from his mission, but its source. His example invites us to kneel and adore Our Lord truly present in the Most Holy Sacrament.

The Star of the Sea Adoration Chapel is located at the church’s west entrance, accessible via a pathway along Geary Boulevard.