Being in His Presence

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament has got to be the most under-estimated activity a person can do. 

It's like going on vacation, except this is a retreat for both your body AND soul.

The peace it brings to the physical body, the serenity it brings to the soul, and the good ideas it brings to the mind must be reasons why so many adorers keep going back for more.

It's like drinking from the Font of Life, and who wouldn't want to be nourished from the very hand of God?

Even more noble is the person who continues to adore even if God should ask him to do without the direct feeling of these benefits.  Such a person is no doubt storing up riches in Heaven!

When you're rushing to get to Adoration, though, the temptation to just skip it altogether is so great.   So quickly does the mind rationalize that things would be easier and more peaceful if I didn't go.

But thank God I've remembered from past experiences.  An hour of silence in His Presence absolutely does the body good, and the peace, recalibration, and good ideas it brings can't be replicated by anything else!

Yesterday, when Juliana had invited me to join her and her husband during their regular Adoration hour, all the usual temptations crept in.  I had too much to do, a child that needed me, a husband who needed dinner, photographs I needed to edit, and the list went on.

Even while driving there, there were reasons to skip it.  I hadn't eaten dinner.   There was extra traffic.  A wrong turn onto a highway sent me driving a distance to the next exit for a turn-around.

I was 15 minutes late, but I made it.  They waved to me, and then I settled into a quiet space all on my own.  I cracked open my Bible, amazed that God should present me with the same pages in Sirach that He tried showing me last week, full of lessons about child-rearing and husband-loving and cautions about greed.

Even if I didn't have my Bible with me, somehow being in His Presence always fills me up with good ideas that I could have never come up with on my own.  I scribbled His good ideas on a tiny receipt, confident that my new pledges to serve Him and my family would benefit me!

Thank you, God, for the gift of your Real Presence!