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  Rekindling Eucharistic Amazement

It’s 2:00 am and a novice tip-toes quietly to the chapel. Shaking off sleep, she kneels to adore her Eucharistic Lord. All-night First Friday Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is one of the ways that the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia are responding to the Holy Father’s call to rekindle Eucharistic amazement and to contemplate the face of Christ in this year of the Eucharist.

At daily celebration of holy Mass, the source and summit of the Church’s life, the sisters encounter the real presence of Christ. Each afternoon at 4:30 p.m. the Blessed Sacrament is exposed for an hour of adoration and community prayer in His Presence. These initiatives, along with study and communal and personal prayer, are intended to increase awareness and devotion to this deepest mystery of our faith.

Involvement of Faculty and Parents
Sisters, together with faculty and parents, are working to cultivate, what John Paul II calls "a lively awareness of Christ’s real presence, both in the celebration of Mass and in the worship of the Eucharist outside Mass” (Mane Nobiscum Domine 18) in a variety of ways:
  • Leading faculty and staff retreats and classes based on the Pope's Eucharistic documents.
     
  • Providing Eucharistic catechesis for parents through monthly bulletins and letters.
  • Providing each family with a copy of the document Ecclesia de Eucharistia.
     
  • Ensuring that Mass is "well celebrated" (MND 17) in their schools by: helping students with spiritual preparation, preparing lectors for careful reading of the scriptures, practicing responses and singing, and teaching prayerful and reverent behavior at Mass.
     
  • Emphasizing "the Sunday Eucharist and Sunday itself" (MND 8).

Time for Eucharistic Adoration
Many schools are increasing the time available for Eucharistic Adoration. Children and young persons report a love for these times of silent conversation before their Lord.

Themes to Penetrate Eucharistic Significance
St. Vincent de Paul School in Denver, Colorado has the theme “Extravagant Love” to describe Jesus’ total self-gift in the Eucharist. They are also taking the month of November to celebrate not just November 26, but especially the Eucharist as Thanksgiving. Other schools are choosing Eucharistic saints, such as St. John Neuman, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Bl. Imelda, as models for living out this Eucharistic year.

The Eucharist: "Project of Solidarity" (MND 28)
Our schools are always busy with a variety of service projects, and this year teachers are discussing with students the direct relationship between the celebration of the Eucharist and our love and service of our neighbor.

Stay With us, Lord!
Through these efforts and others, we join our prayer with the Holy Father’s -- may we all be amazed by our encounter with the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, “the perfect fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to remain with us until the end of the world” (MND 16).