By Beverly Schmitz Glass, PhD

Special to the Register

There is no computer monitor or TV screen at Eucharistic adoration, no figures or colors shifting across the screen. They simply sit and look at the round piece of bread encircled by light. That bread is the Body of Christ, the consecrated host, before which countless adorers gaze in rapt adoration during their hour with the Christ.

"I have a hard time thinking of Pope John Paul II without thinking about him retiring to his chapel, both as a bishop in Krakow and as pope in Rome, where the Blessed Sacrament was displayed," Bishop Gilmore said in his homily. "He prayed, read, wrote his encyclicals, and made all of his major decisions on his knees in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Should we not follow his example by making all of our major decisions on bent knee in front of the Blessed Sacrament?"

Perpetual Adoration is a Eucharistic devotion whereby adorers unite in taking hours of adoration before the Most Blessed Sacrament (in most cases, exposed) both during the day and throughout the night, seven days a week. Garden City’s Perpetual Adoration is located in the Chapel of St. Catherine of Sienna in St. Catherine Hospital.

According to Jean Winter, chairperson for Perpetual Adoration in Garden City, there have been so many beautiful things happen because of this.

"There have been conversions, people coming back to the Church, a couple of marriages have been reconciled in addition to healings and prayers answered," she said. "And those are just what I am aware of – who knows how many others have been touched by God?"

The admirable practice of gathering in prayer before the tabernacle to adore Christ truly present therein was born of a need to reserve the Lord’s sacred body for Communion for the sick and infirm. Recommended by the Church to her pastors and their faithful, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is highly expressive of the bond between the celebration of the Lord’s sacrifice and his permanent presence in the consecrated host.

"By remaining in prayer before the Lord Jesus, truly living in the Blessed Sacrament, not only is our union with him matured, but we are better disposed to more fruitfully celebrate it," Bishop Gilmore said. "It can be as simple as a brief encounter with Christ spurred on by faith in his true presence and characterized by silent prayer that draws us back to the essential fact that our risen Lord is with us even to the end of the earth.

"In the Eucharist, we see Jesus Christ," he added. "Not as we shall see him when we leave this world, not as he wants to be known by us in eternity, but in the form in which he has chosen to come to us on our earthly journey. Someday, when this present darkness ends and God is all in all, we shall see his beloved face and we shall be embraced by and love the one who made us out of love, redeemed us, gave himself to the darkest death for us."

St. Anthony Parish, Liberal, was the first to inaugurate Perpetual Adoration in the diocese, on Jan. 16, 1994. There are approximately 150 adorers who keep vigil before the Blessed Sacrament at the St. Joseph Oratory. Perpetual Adoration began in Great Bend on Jan. 2, 1995, with about 250 participants who pray in the chapel at Central Kansas Medical Center.

Perpetual Adoration began Oct. 4, 1996 in Garden City at the St. Catherine Hospital Chapel, and the Eucharistic devotion was initiated at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Dodge City on Nov. 7, 2004.

Each of the four sites has a book of petitions. People may add their petitions to the book and the adorers will add those to their prayers as they keep vigil. Visitors to all four sites are also encouraged to join in prayer.

"All events of our lives are summarized in the Blessed Sacrament," Bishop Gilmore said. "For now we gaze up at him as our food encircled by light. The Eucharist we adore is the window to heaven, the true body of our Lord. Never, never stop your silent adoration. Never stop this gift of Jesus Christ."