This is part of a series that will run through summer 2025, the months in which we Sisters make our 8-day annual retreat. The series will highlight retreat reflections from the Sisters, providing an opportunity, as it were, to glimpse the heart of the Sisters…
When I was a postulant, my formator gave me a few pages to read from The Way of Perfection by St. Teresa of Avila. It was a chapter that contained a method of recollecting one’s thoughts in prayer—in silent prayer. My mind likes to run in different directions and sitting in chapel, in silence was a struggle. To this day, my mind still likes to run just the same, and I’ve found St. Teresa’s proposed method quite effective. She writes to her sisters in community,
“I am not asking you now to think of Him, or to form numerous conceptions of Him, or to make long and subtle meditations with your understanding. I am asking you only to look at Him. For who can prevent you from turning the eyes of your soul (just for a moment, if you can do no more) upon this Lord? You are capable of looking at very ugly and loathsome things: can you not, then, look at the most beautiful thing imaginable? Your Spouse never takes His eyes off you, daughters.”
This may not come naturally at first, but just like learning any new thing, whether it’s playing an instrument or dancing, it takes practice, practice, and more practice. For instance, it has been 15 years since I entered postulancy, which means I would have made at least five thousand hours of Eucharistic Adoration, a.k.a. “Visits with Jesus” as our founder, Bl. James Alberione calls it. That may sound like a lot of practice already, but I still find myself on the same boat with my mind struggling to be still.
Bringing spiritual reading and listening to or singing praise and worship music are certainly good ways to enter into silent adoration but eventually the goal is to encounter the Lord Himself! When people ask me for tips about prayer, I never feel equipped to say anything but by the grace of the Holy Spirit, something good comes out of my mouth and almost always, it’s something that I myself need to hear. Something like,
“At the end of the day, Jesus just wants to be with you. He has much to say to you and the more you spend time with Him, the more you’ll recognize His voice.”
Like Moses encountered God in the burning bush, like Elijah in silence and stillness, like the apostles who met Jesus during his public ministry, like Mary Magdalene outside the empty tomb, like St. Paul on the road to Damascus, I came to realize that each of us can encounter Jesus in a profoundly personal way. When we choose to spend time in the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, we express our love for God and our desire to be with him now and throughout eternity. It is also an act of faith and hope as we talk to Him about our material and spiritual needs. It is an act of humility and thanksgiving – acknowledging that our transformation in Christ happens through the power of the Holy Spirit and that everything good that we have comes from God.
During my novitiate, I’ve experienced moments of inspiration during Adoration when my hands would try to write as fast as words were coming to mind. Drafts of a song here and there sometimes end up on my journal. After first profession, over the span of a few years, I was blessed to meet and collaborate with some generous and talented people on a short music video that attempts to explore what it’s like to encounter the Lord in silent Eucharistic Adoration (below).
Each person’s experience is unique and unrepeatable so although this may not be relatable to all, my hope is that you will feel inspired to spend time with Jesus in the Eucharist. In fact, I pray fervently that you will! – for the same motivations that St. Teresa tells her sisters,
“I assure you that, if you are careful to form habits of the kind I have mentioned, you will derive such great profit from them that I could not describe it even if I wished. Keep at the side of this good Master, then, and be most firmly resolved to learn what He teaches you; His Majesty will then ensure your not failing to be good disciples, and He will never leave you unless you leave Him.”
Recommended reading:
- Eucharistic Adoration Prayerbook by Sr. Marie Paul Curley, FSP
- Eucharistic Amazement by Fr. Randy Stice
- Come to Me: Living the Nine First Fridays by Sr. Anne Flanagan, FSP
- The Way of Perfection by St. Teresa of Avila