Perpetual Adoration

Adoration News

Mon-Thurs, February 21-24-Parish Mission: Normal schedule except no exposition from 7-9 pm during the talks. Adorers from 9-10 pm (and all other adorers) keep your hours Mon-Thursday, just like always.

Friday, February 25: Normal Friday schedule. No changes at all. The Blessed Sacrament WILL BE exposed during the Stations of the Cross.

Saturday evening, March 12: LENTEN EVENING OF PRAISE AND WORSHIP: 7:30 pm in the main church. Join Fr. Boddie for an opportunity to offer praise, worship, and adoration to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. We will be welcoming Jim Cowan and his group. Jim is a long-time songleader for the adult and young adult summer conferences at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. The evening will include prayers, songs of praise, adoration, and benediction.

Year of the Eucharist to Include a
Special Indulgence

Many Catholics have heard that Pope John Paul II has approved a special plenary indulgence to mark the Year of the Eucharist, and that it may be obtained by participating in acts of worship and veneration of the Blessed Sacrament. Unfortunately, the truth is that we Catholics do not really know what an indulgence is. In order to understand the nature of the gift, we must first understand the true nature and consequences of "sin" and the reality of "God's mercy."

Back to Basics: Catechism 101 - Sin, Forgiveness, Consequences

SIN is the conscious and free will act with which one disobeys the will of God. When we surrender freely to grave sin, the consequence is that we separate ourselves from the Divine Life we received at Baptism. We have chosen the created order over and above the Creator, have rejected the love of the Father choosing instead that which destroys the life of the soul.
Consequences flow from the choice to sin. First and foremost, we offend God through sin. We reject His sovereign goodness, His fatherly love.

FORGIVENESS and healing for the leprosy of the soul - sin - comes through the sacrament of mercy: Confession-Penance-Reconciliation. When we come sincerely repentant to this sacrament, our sins are forgiven because of God's mercy. The Lord's gift of forgiveness is given through the ministry of the Church. Frequent, sincere, and humble Confession is one of the most effective ways of fighting our tendency to sin.

CONSEQUENCES, however, remain even after sins are forgiven. In addition to having offended God, we have affected the entire body of Christ and weakened our own ability to say "no" to wrongdoing. We have dimmed our ability to see ourselves as children in relationship with a loving Father. The infection in the wound has been healed, but the tissue is still bruised. The body is still feeling the consequences of the poison, so to speak. Here, too, the Church comes to our aid by giving us penances after our good Confession to help repair the damage done when Love is offended. Also, She grants ways to partially or completely remit the divine temporal punishment still due for those sins we freely committed, but for which we have already been forgiven. These special dispensations, we call indulgences.

Indulgences
Generosity of the Church in Dispensing the
Merits of Christ and the Saints

To understand indulgences, one must understand love. Our loving God gave to a sinful world a Redeemer who willingly gave His life to make available to all men the very divine Life of the Holy Trinity. Through the sacrament of Baptism, all the baptized now joined to Jesus form a supernatural unity referred to as the Mystical Body of Christ. This includes all the baptized who are already in heaven, those in Purgatory still being purified of the consequences of their forgiven sins, and those of us still making choices here on earth. In this wonderful unity, the holiness of one profits others well beyond the harm that the sins of one could cause others.

Jesus Himself left to His Bride, the Church, to dispense until the end of time, the treasury of His own merits gained through His Passion and Death. This treasury also includes the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary, immense and unfathomable in their value before God, as well as the good works and prayers of all the saints. All who have and are following in the footsteps of Jesus are cooperating in the salvation of their brothers and sisters in this Mystical Body.

The special indulgence granted by the Holy Father for this Year of the Eucharist, then, is just one example of how the Church carries out the authority and power to bind and loose given to her by her Founder and Head, Jesus Christ, by helping her sons and daughters to obtain from the Father the remission of the temporal punishment due their sins. For this reason, like the good Mother that she is, the Church encourages us to works of devotion, penance, and charity that we might help ourselves and one another.

An indulgence, then, is a partial or complete (plenary) remission before God of the temporal punishment due to already forgiven sins. The remission may be either applied to oneself or to a soul in Purgatory, which the Christian can obtain by participating in certain prescribed actions and meeting certain conditions set forth by the Church.

How to obtain this special indulgence:

First of all, we must have the intention of gaining this indulgence, either for ourselves or for a soul in Purgatory.
What is the special action? To reverently participate in acts of worship and veneration of the Most Blessed Sacrament, either when It is solemnly exposed (as It is in our chapel) or when It is reserved in the Tabernacle. In addition to this "indulgenced act," we must go to sacramental Confession, being truly sorry for the sins that we confess to the priest, within eight days before or after the prescribed act; we must receive Eucharistic Communion worthily; and we must offer prayers for the intentions of the Pope (praying an Our Father and a Hail Mary, or any other prayer that you especially like for the Pope's intentions). These three conditions may be carried out several days preceding or following the visit to the Blessed Sacrament, but ideally the Holy Communion and the prayers for the Pope's intentions should take place on the same day you visit, honor and adore our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. In order to receive the complete remission of the temporal punishment, we need to have fulfilled these conditions with our souls completely removed from sin and any attachment to sin.

If a person is not fully disposed in this way or if the other conditions are not met, the indulgence will only be partial.

In summary, let us keep in mind that this is a Year full of God's grace. Let us decide to live this moment of grace and purification offered to us during this Year of the Eucharist with the attitude of one who wants to love God with all his heart, who wishes to grow, both by being purified from lack of love as well as from sins of the past, and by opening ourselves to an overcoming of all the negative consequences of sin. In other words, let's remember that it is all about Love.

--Mary and Patty
January 21, 2005

**Don't Forget**

When the chapel is locked, let no one in who does not know the code! Give the code to no one. If they think they should have it, tell them to call Patty or Mary.

For more information on Perpetual Adoration contact: mahinop@comcast.net or call 264-1904/269-5030