Single Catholics: I Spiritually Challenge You

Let’s start with one simple question: How many of us go to adoration regularly? Okay, how about another: How many of us make more time than the quick prayer in the morning and the hour at Mass on Sunday for God?

I know as of late I have definitely been guilty of not making enough time for God. I’ve started thinking about different ways that I could fix this and one of them was presented to me through one recent event that the CatholicMatch Institute helped to sponsor—the Diocese of Charlotte, 10th Eucharistic Congress.

I had the opportunity to speak with Diocese of Charlotte's director of communications, Mr. David Hains from the diocese of Charlotte about the Eucharistic Congress and their mission to promote Eucharistic Adoration. Over the last 10 years Charlotte’s Eucharistic Congress has grown from about 2,000 people the first year to about 11,000 people this past year.

“It is pretty gratifying to see people getting into the spirit and kind of answering the call,” Hains said. “In some ways what is taking place here is a lot of traditional Catholicism, and it is extremely gratifying to see young adults, single adults, and people who essentially have a really firm spiritual footing at this point in their lives. It is my hope that it only gets better for them with regards to their spiritual life, when they begin so early with an event like this."

In speaking with Mr. David Hains, I was inspired to spend a little more time in the chapel over the last two weeks. Hopefully I keep up the practice of going to visit Jesus before I start my day at school, it’s a good habit to have, and the crazy thing is, Jesus is always there. He is always waiting for us to come and adore Him.

I was struct by the message of the congress and I personally need to rediscover that firm spiritual footing that Mr. Hains was talking about. The Blessed Sacrament is truly Jesus Christ present body, blood, soul, and divinity, under the accidents of bread and wine, and I think sometimes I forget that, I think we all do.

We get so caught up in what we can physically see that we forget what is truly present before us when we attend Mass or even Holy Hour. Before us is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the man who died for our sins out of love for you and I. He deserves to be treated like a King, with music, processions, and all of the adoration that we can give, like at the Congress, yet more often than not He sits in the church and waits for us to make time for Him. Sadly, we have our priorities slightly out of order.

I once heard the story of a bishop who would go to Holy Hour every day. One day he was in a meeting with another bishop and the subject of his daily holy hour came up. He explained to the second bishop that no matter what, he always made the time to give God one hour in adoration. The second bishop looked at him dumbfounded and said that he barely had time to finish the work that he had been given in the first place; adding an additional hour of adoration would be unrealistic. The first bishop shook his head and explained that making that hour for God helped him to accomplish all of his other tasks throughout the day, he never ran out of time.

I don’t know where I heard this, or if this conversation ever actually happened, but I do know that the point is clear—we need to ensure that our priorities are in order and that Jesus is the center of our lives, everything else must come second.

So here is the deal, I challenge you to spend one additional hour in adoration this month, and next month make it two, the month after, three…. You get the idea, and I will do it too.

Let's pray for each other to find our spouses or whatever it is that God is calling us to do. Let's ask for the grace to always be open to the promptings of God's holy will.