Adoration (for the Dumb?)

Late last fall a Notre Dame theologian, Father Richard McBrien more or less denounced the practice of Eucharistic Adoration. He lamented, "It is difficult to speak favorably about the devotion today". Those who practice the act of Eucharistic Adoration, he asserted, were naive and grounded within questionable theology. That to adore the Eucharist outside of the Mass would lead to divorcing it from the liturgy.

Furthermore he asserted that it was, in essence, a practice left for a more simplistic time, stating, "now that Catholics are literate and even well-educated, the Mass is in the language of the people...and its rituals relatively easy to understand and follow, there is little or no need for extraneous Eucharistic devotions". Adoring the Eucharist, Father McBrien claims is a, "doctrinal, theological and spiritual step backward".

I would humbly disagree with Father McBrien's claim that those who would dare to Adore the Lord made flesh are simpletons and fools. I am an educated man, not as educated as the good Father McBrien, but I would like to consider myself educated for the sake of argument. I will have a Masters degree in May, I have applied for a doctoral program, I have presented on a national level four times before my peers and top officials. None of that establishes my credentials to speak of theology as the education of Father McBrien does, but it does speak to the fact that I am not a "naive" individual.

It was in Eucharistic Adoration that I found my way to the Roman Catholic Church. I had my closest friend find a place where I could confront the Eucharist, outside the context of the Mass, someplace intimate where there would be few other people. I was scared, terrified even, that the Church was right and I had been wrong for so many years. Yet I had studied the Scriptures, and I knew that the only way to prove the Church was wrong was to prove that the Eucharist itself was not true. So...I went to Adoration. Contrary to divorcing the Eucharist from the liturgy, I find that I wanted to attend Mass afterwards.

Well, we can see how that turned out as next week I celebrate my first full year as a Roman Catholic. I would not trade a minute of it, no matter the sorrows, no matter the abuse. In my time Adoring the Eucharist, linking it to Sacred Scripture, I have seen many people within the confines of Blessed Margaret of Castello Perpetual Adoration Chapel. Some would most likely fit the bill of Father McBrien's denunciation of simple folk: coal miners, retirees, college students and Protestants who are there because their Catholic neighbor couldn't make it and were asked to fill in. Others though, I ponder if they would fit his label he has created for those who attend Adoration: college professors, medical doctors, magistrates, priests and religious sisters.

Throughout the twentieth century, a number of people who are well educated in matters both theological and secular have found comfort and joy in what Father McBrien claims to be a giant step backwards. Jacques Maritain, one of the pre-eminent Catholic philsophers of the era would bow before the Eucharist in Adoration whenever he was home in Paris (ironically, his masterpiece The Degrees of Knowledge is published by the University of Notre Dame Press). Dr. Edith Stein spent a significant amount of time before the Lord in Adoration during the 1920s and contributed a great deal to her field, including a study of the mysticism of Saint John of the Cross shortly before she was killed by the Nazis. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, well known for his theological works, radio broadcasts and television series stated that he would write his homilies in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament in Adoration. Final amongst my examples is a man named Karol Wojtyla who would become known as Pope John Paul II; he was a frequent devotee of Adoration throughout his life and while in Rome he would kneel before the Ecuharist to prepare his heart before Daily Mass.

Furthermore and final, I would ask of the dear Father McBrien why he would attack a concept that requires an individual to have the faith of a child as commanded to us by none less than the Christ. We can link Sacred Scripture together to justify our belief in Eucharist, we can debate the nature of it endlessly, but to believe that it is the Son of God made into the flesh is to believe in something truly fantastic. Yes, there can be a marvelous intellectual argument and capacity required to validate that belief, but in the end, it is faith that carries the day. We all have times we doubt and worry, the Lord knows that I have more than my fair share, but my faith in the Eucharist has never waivered from that first night. It is my prayer, as we commemorate the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, that those who read this can maintain that faith of a child that is required to believe that the wafer is more than it appears, that it is the Son of God.