What is Adoration?
The Benedictine Sisters of Sacre Coeur de Montmartre.
The following article on Adoration was taken from the Magnificat special edition, The Magnificat Adoration Manuel.
Adoration is due to God alone. To adore the thrice-holy and supremely lovable God in the Blessed Sacrament exposed on the altar means that we offer ourselves to the ineffable love of God who has begun to manifest himself in creation, who has been revealed to us since Abraham, who has laid in Jesus Christ the foundation of the Church through which he acts in the world.
To pray before the Blessed Sacrament exposed on the altar is to cast a glance of faith upon Jesus Christ, true God and true man, truly present in the Bread of the Eucharist.
This prayer of adoration manifests God’s mercy and tenderness for humanity and calls each one of us to intercede for the needs of men. God so loved the world the he gave his only Son, Jesus, the source of salvation, is offered for our contemplation and adoration incessantly. From him, all who pray to him receive and abundance of grace to live in this world as beloved children; and through him, in the Spirit, each of us returns to the Father; the God of tenderness and mercy, to bless and glorify him. Moreover, regardless of our poverty or wealth, through prayer, we can draw from the unfathomable riches of the Heart of Christ, given to us in the Eucharist, for the good of all people. Let us ask the Lord to make us worshipers in spirit and truth, witnesses of the love of God before the men and women of our time.
In prayer of adoration, it is not a question, like the hypocritical Pharisee of the Gospel, of giving thanks for our own righteousness, and of praying only for others love of God, given for us in Jesus, exposed before our eyes in the Blessed Sacrament, it is a question of recognizing ourselves as poor and sinful, to see that without him we can do nothing (cf. Jn 15:5), to let ourselves be saved by him, to let ourselves be healed, to let ourselves be converted. It is a question of offering ourselves to God the Father in the one and perfect offering of Jesus his Son, under the movement of the Holy Spirit, in order to fully accomplish his will. In this way, our prayer will be true: it will transform us, and in the Communion of Saints, it will shine forth as the grace of salvation for many men and women of our time who do not know God, who have distanced themselves from him, or who refuse his love.
The Basilica of Sacre Coeur de Montmartre has been the site of continuous perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in Paris since 1885.
Msgr. Brennan