Eucharistic Adoration with Our Lady

By Dominican NunsJesus in the Eucharist, Marian Devotion, Rosary 102

This meditation by St. Peter Julian Eymard seemed preeminently suitable for the feast of Corpus Christi during the month of Our Lady.

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Mary’s Prayer of Adoration

Mary devoted herself exclusively to the Eucharistic glory of Jesus. She knew that it was the desire of the Eternal Father to make the Eucharist known, loved and served by all men; that the need of Jesus’ Heart was to communicate to all men His gifts of grace and glory.  She knew, too, that it was the mission of the Holy Spirit to extend and perfect in the hearts of men the reign of Jesus Christ, and that the Church had been founded only to give Jesus to the world.  All Mary’s desire, then, was to make Him known in His Sacrament.  Her intense love for Jesus felt the need of expanding is this way, of consecrating itself—as a kind of relief, as it were—because of her own inability to glorify Him as much as she desired.

Ever since Calvary, all men were her children.  She loved them with a Mother’s tenderness and longed for their supreme good as for her own; therefore, she was consumed with the desire to make Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament known to all, to inflame all hearts with His love, to see them enchained to His loving service.

To obtain this favor, Mary passed her time at the foot of the Most Adorable Sacrament, in prayer and penance.  There she treated of the world’s salvation.  In her boundless zeal, she embraced the needs of the Faithful everywhere, for all time to come, who would inherit the Holy Eucharist and be Its adorers.

But the mission dearest to Mary’s heart was that of constant prayer for the success of the preaching and the missionary labors of the Apostles and of all the members of Jesus Christ’s priesthood.  It is not surprising, then, that those Apostolic workers so easily converted entire kingdoms, for Mary remained constantly at the foot of the Throne of Mercy, supplicating on their behalf the Savior’s benevolence.  Her prayers converted countless souls, and as every conversion is the fruit of prayer, and since Mary’s prayer could meet no refusal, the Apostles had in this Mother of Mercy their most powerful helper.  “Blessed is he for whom Mary prays!”

In Eucharistic Adoration We Share in Mary’s Prayer

Eucharistic adorers share Mary’s life and mission of prayer at the foot of the Most Blessed Sacrament. It is the most beautiful of all missions, and it holds no perils.  It is the most holy, for in it all the virtues are practiced.  It is, moreover, the most necessary to the Church, which has even more need of prayerful souls than of powerful preachers; of men of penance rather than of men of eloquence.  Today more than ever have we need of men who, by their self-immolation, disarm the anger of God inflamed by the ever-increasing crimes of nation.  We must have souls who by their importunity re-open the treasures of grace which the indifference of the multitude has closed.  We must have true adorers; that is to say, men of fervor and of sacrifice.  When there are many such souls around their Divine Chief, God will be glorified, Jesus will be loved, and society will once more be Christian, conquered for Jesus Christ by the apostolate of Eucharistic prayer.

Dominican Nuns as Our Lady’s Guards of Honor

Our monastery was founded in the tradition of the Dominican Sisters of the Perpetual Rosary, making our entire life one of Adoration in union with Our Lady.  From our Perpetual Rosary Custom Book:

For us, the privileged children of Mary, our portion is to form the court of this amiable Queen of Heaven, the Queen of all the queens of earth.  Unceasingly do we surround her throne, reciting her praises.  Day by day, and night after night, always, ever, Mary sees us at her feet, happy and eager to honor and bless her and intercede with her for the whole human race.—

It is a great happiness to be able to fulfill our hea­venly functions as Mary’s Guards of Honor at the foot of the Tabernacle.  We thus study all the mysteries of Jesus under the veil of the Host which contains them.  What a source of joy to be able by this sweet industry, to cause the gift which Jesus had made of His merits to fructify by placing them into our hands, so to speak, through the Holy Eucharist!

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