Happy Feast of the Transfiguration! (over 23 hours into this Feast, mind you...) I love this day, for many reasons, and now I just have one more.
We have been acknowledging for several months now that it's time to resume going to weekly Eucharistic Adoration. I would say that we had been talking about it, but when the conversation usually goes like this:
Me: "You know, we really should get back to Adoration..."
Him: "Yeah."
*silence*
then you really can't say you've been "talking about it." Until very recently. I've learned to ask some further questions, like, "Do you think one hour to share? Or one each? When are you thinking of?" and then we actually make some progress!
So as it turns out, to bolster our conversation, what did they have at the back of the narthex after Mass yesterday? The sign-up table for the Perpetual Adoration Chapel. I could not believe the number of days highlighted with needs. It was reminiscent of the first time we signed up for adoration. There were so many available dates that we took three. We kept them for years, 2-3a Saturday, 11-12a Saturday, and 4-5a Monday. Then we had a little bit of shuffling with my day...dropping Saturday, trying I think, Wednesday, and settling on Friday evening from 8-9p for I think 5-6 years. Kermit dropped an hour, then I think changed for a little while, but it didn't work out and he dropped altogether, except for when he'd be going for me, sometimes over swaths of time where I was pregnant, early postpartum, etc. Then came Gilbert's pregnancy.
We found out about Gilbert on the Feast of the Transfiguration. Kermit's schedule became absolutely insane during the pregnancy and for nearly two solid months I could not make it to adoration. He wasn't home, and I couldn't get a pregnant me and seven children to adoration. I couldn't continue calling on the substitutes; the hour had to go. I went on hiatus, intending to resume it, but never could.
It's been about 20 months since we've had an adoration hour, the only break we have had since early 2000. We needed to do it, but I cannot say we have not experienced the spiritual side effects of it. It's been tough, to say the least.
Today all of that changed. Gil is older, and I can sneak off without him. I am not physically in need of extra hands in the evening (mentally?...that's another story!), so Kermit can afford to take some time out. We sat with the bulletin this morning, and looked at all the available hours that needed a primary adorer, and pinpointed one for each of us. Made that phone call, and left a message that we wanted to sign up, and then not long after I noticed the words:
"Lord, it is good for us to be here."
And I stopped in my tracks. These are the first words I said for all those years as soon as I got on my knees in Our Lord's Presence.
"Lord, it is good for me to be here."
How fitting that today was the day we returned to Eucharistic Adoration. May Jesus Christ continue to transfigure our lives and our very selves into His Life and His Self.
God Bless You
